Beneficial Reuse of Sulphur Impacted Soils to Remediate Cement and Concrete Contaminated Sites

This project will use contaminated soils from two types of contaminated sites and combine them, resulting in the soils “treating” each other. The first type of soil used is sulphur contaminated soils, which are created near sulphur stockpiles on industrial oil and gas sites. The second type of soil being treated is cement and concrete contaminated soil, which is created on sites where large amount of concrete are produced and stored over long timeframes. One of the primary concerns with concrete contaminated soils is high pH, which can be lowered by sulphur. Under the correct conditions in soil, sulphur will undergo a biological reaction which causes lowering of pH. Therefore, by mixing these soil types and controlling site conditions, the sulphur contaminated soils can treat the high pH concrete contaminated soils. Additionally, this project will investigate other co-contaminants that often accompany the soils used, to ensure that the process is safe to use. The successful completion of this project will allow the cleaning of one type of contaminated site with the waste from another contaminated site.

Faculty Supervisor:

Cathy Ryan

Student:

Jordan Hollman

Partner:

Remington Development Corporation

Discipline:

Geography / Geology / Earth science

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Calgary