283
Permeable Reactive Barriers in Europe
drainage or ammonia, and a D&G-PRB employing palladium and
hydrogen to treat cVOCs in situ.
4. Long-term monitoring of field-scale projects such as the ZVI-PRB at
Rheine, the GAC-PRBs at Karlsruhe, and Brunn am Gebirge (Vienna,
Austria), all running successfully for more than 10 years, and the
Bio-PRB at Offenbach (set up in 2007), which provided versatile and
highly valuable monitoring data over several years.
Thus, it could be concluded that PRBs represent a successful in situ remediation technology. Moreover, a comparison to long-term data obtained at
other PRB sites in Europe as well as in North America provided similar overall results. All missions, goals, and results of RUBIN phase #2 have been
compiled in a supplemental volume to the German PRB handbook and guidance (in German, published in 2012, Birke and Burmeier, 2012a,b).
13.2.2 A Review of German PRB Sites Comprising the First
RUBIN Projects
13.2.2.1 Bernau
Set up in 2001 on the premises of a former dry-cleaning facility of the former
Soviet army, funded by RUBIN, type: EC-PRB, a partly actively working system (lifting up groundwater by pumping, pilot-scale; one-reactor cell adjacent to the ground surface, accessible from top, equipped with 18 cylindrical
reactor vessels made of reinforced concrete), employs ZVI (chiefly GotthartMaier) for treating high cVOC concentrations in two aquifers (75–350 mg/L
TCE). It is possible to run the reactors in parallel or series to control flow
length and residence times inside the reactive system. The PRB has constantly achieved high degradation rates of more than 99% TCE removal, but
there is a low cis-DCE reduction. Hence, subsequent purification on activated
carbon can be applied to adsorb cis-DCE; there has been temporary clogging
of the iron by mineral precipitation and gas production (N 2 and H 2 ). A full
control over and accessibility to the system enable a relatively easy and swift
identification of problems and managing efficient solutions, such as clogging
of the ZVI bed by mineral precipitates and gas plugging (Birke et al., 2003,
2004; Weber et al., 2013) (Figure 13.4).
13.2.2.2 Bitterfeld
Set up in 1999, the so-called “SAFIRA” test site, EC-PRB equipped with ISVs
(placed in five shafts, 3 m in diameter, 32 m deep), using active pumping;
different reactive materials and breakdown processes were tested between
1999 and 2004. Treatment of cVOCs and other CHCs, particularly chlorinated
aromatics (complex contaminant mixture inside a local aquifer) achieved
partly successful degradation of the main contaminants (e.g., GAC combined
Permeable Reactive Barriers in Europe
drainage or ammonia, and a D&G-PRB employing palladium and
hydrogen to treat cVOCs in situ.
4. Long-term monitoring of field-scale projects such as the ZVI-PRB at
Rheine, the GAC-PRBs at Karlsruhe, and Brunn am Gebirge (Vienna,
Austria), all running successfully for more than 10 years, and the
Bio-PRB at Offenbach (set up in 2007), which provided versatile and
highly valuable monitoring data over several years.
Thus, it could be concluded that PRBs represent a successful in situ remediation technology. Moreover, a comparison to long-term data obtained at
other PRB sites in Europe as well as in North America provided similar overall results. All missions, goals, and results of RUBIN phase #2 have been
compiled in a supplemental volume to the German PRB handbook and guidance (in German, published in 2012, Birke and Burmeier, 2012a,b).
13.2.2 A Review of German PRB Sites Comprising the First
RUBIN Projects
13.2.2.1 Bernau
Set up in 2001 on the premises of a former dry-cleaning facility of the former
Soviet army, funded by RUBIN, type: EC-PRB, a partly actively working system (lifting up groundwater by pumping, pilot-scale; one-reactor cell adjacent to the ground surface, accessible from top, equipped with 18 cylindrical
reactor vessels made of reinforced concrete), employs ZVI (chiefly GotthartMaier) for treating high cVOC concentrations in two aquifers (75–350 mg/L
TCE). It is possible to run the reactors in parallel or series to control flow
length and residence times inside the reactive system. The PRB has constantly achieved high degradation rates of more than 99% TCE removal, but
there is a low cis-DCE reduction. Hence, subsequent purification on activated
carbon can be applied to adsorb cis-DCE; there has been temporary clogging
of the iron by mineral precipitation and gas production (N 2 and H 2 ). A full
control over and accessibility to the system enable a relatively easy and swift
identification of problems and managing efficient solutions, such as clogging
of the ZVI bed by mineral precipitates and gas plugging (Birke et al., 2003,
2004; Weber et al., 2013) (Figure 13.4).
13.2.2.2 Bitterfeld
Set up in 1999, the so-called “SAFIRA” test site, EC-PRB equipped with ISVs
(placed in five shafts, 3 m in diameter, 32 m deep), using active pumping;
different reactive materials and breakdown processes were tested between
1999 and 2004. Treatment of cVOCs and other CHCs, particularly chlorinated
aromatics (complex contaminant mixture inside a local aquifer) achieved
partly successful degradation of the main contaminants (e.g., GAC combined