Chapter 25
Field Study IX: Pilot-Scale Composting of
PAH-Contaminated Materials: Two
Different Approaches
Petra Innemanová and Tomáš Cajthaml
Abstract Results of this field study describe composting of two different
PAH-contaminated materials (soils originated from four industrial sites and
creosote-treated railway crossties). Sequential mild supercritical fluid extraction
(SFE) was employed to estimate the fast-release fractions (F) of PAHs in order to
predict bioaccessible portion of PAHs in the materials. These values were consequently compared with the real biodegradation data obtained from the two pilotscale experiments in order to investigate whether the bioaccessible data can be used
as a prediction parameter of the degradation efficiency. The final results of the PAH
elimination ranged between 62.4% and 92.9% in the case of the soil samples and
between 81.4% and 97.0% for two different treatments of contaminated railway
crossties. The results showed that the elimination efficiency decreased with the
increasing number of aromatic rings in the PAH molecules. Estimation of the
bioaccessible fraction of PAHs using the SFE method has been proven to be a useful
tool for prediction of the bioremediation process efficiency. This fact is particularly
important because if the composting method is employed in the full scale, any
addition of the necessary bulking agent leads to the final increase in the total amount
of the treated hazardous wastes if the remediation process fails.
Keywords Composting · Bioremediation · PAHs · Supercritical fluid extraction ·
Bioavailability
P. Innemanová (*)
DEKONTA a.s, Stehelčeves, Czech Republic
Institute for Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech
Republic
e-mail: innemanova@dekonta.cz
T. Cajthaml
Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
Institute for Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech
Republic
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
J. Filip et al. (eds.), Advanced Nano-Bio Technologies for Water and Soil Treatment,
Applied Environmental Science and Engineering for a Sustainable Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29840-1_25
527
Field Study IX: Pilot-Scale Composting of
PAH-Contaminated Materials: Two
Different Approaches
Petra Innemanová and Tomáš Cajthaml
Abstract Results of this field study describe composting of two different
PAH-contaminated materials (soils originated from four industrial sites and
creosote-treated railway crossties). Sequential mild supercritical fluid extraction
(SFE) was employed to estimate the fast-release fractions (F) of PAHs in order to
predict bioaccessible portion of PAHs in the materials. These values were consequently compared with the real biodegradation data obtained from the two pilotscale experiments in order to investigate whether the bioaccessible data can be used
as a prediction parameter of the degradation efficiency. The final results of the PAH
elimination ranged between 62.4% and 92.9% in the case of the soil samples and
between 81.4% and 97.0% for two different treatments of contaminated railway
crossties. The results showed that the elimination efficiency decreased with the
increasing number of aromatic rings in the PAH molecules. Estimation of the
bioaccessible fraction of PAHs using the SFE method has been proven to be a useful
tool for prediction of the bioremediation process efficiency. This fact is particularly
important because if the composting method is employed in the full scale, any
addition of the necessary bulking agent leads to the final increase in the total amount
of the treated hazardous wastes if the remediation process fails.
Keywords Composting · Bioremediation · PAHs · Supercritical fluid extraction ·
Bioavailability
P. Innemanová (*)
DEKONTA a.s, Stehelčeves, Czech Republic
Institute for Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech
Republic
e-mail: innemanova@dekonta.cz
T. Cajthaml
Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
Institute for Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech
Republic
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
J. Filip et al. (eds.), Advanced Nano-Bio Technologies for Water and Soil Treatment,
Applied Environmental Science and Engineering for a Sustainable Future,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29840-1_25
527