Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English en
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2022-11-21

Purification of cokeovensite groundwater by means of biological treatment

Objective

Experimental study of whether the purification of ground water contaminated by leakages and accidents as a result of coke production is possible with the aid of biological purification techniques.
During the entire testing period it turned out to be possible to decompose organic compounds, ammonia and nitrates in biological disk reactors.

The decomposition of the supplied amounts of BTX gave no problem at all at an influent concentration of 20.000 ug/l and a load of 1,0 g/m{2}/day.

Assuming a sufficient capacity of this installation it was possible to reach a total nitrogen-concentration in the effluent of 15 to 20 mg/l. That is amply sufficient, because the limit is 25 mg/l.

In the series of BTX-decomposition, nitrification and denitrification the nitrification-reaction showed to be the restricting one.

In the beginning of September 1993 the investigation of the biological purification of coke-ovensite-groundwater was finished. Hoogovens Ijmuiden has decided to purify the contaminated groundwaterflow in two steps.

The first step is the biological decomposition of BTX and part of the COD by means of rotating discs as was tested in this research project. The effluent of this first step will be purified in a combined installation together with other wastewater streams containing nitrogen compounds.
As a result of leakages, accidents and acts of war, the ground water under one of the coke ovens at Hoogovens Ijmuiden is highly contaminated by NH3, CN-, phenols, PAH and benzene, toluene and xylenes.

To prevent these contaminants spreading via the ground water, extraction wells need to be installed at a number of points. The extraction of sufficient ground water from these wells ensures that the contaminants do not spread any further and are eventually eliminated from the ground water.

In recent years, a number of ways have been examined of purifying the extracted ground water.

The most promising method was studied last year in a pilot trial. This used an installation to strip the ground water with air and then biologically purify the air, now charged with volatile substances, with the aid of compost filters.

In terms of securing a reliable process, the results were not satisfactory. Air stripping gave rise to many problems because the ground water was extremely hard; although the problems were finally resolved, intensive supervision of the installation continued to be necessary.

In addition, the levels of volatile substances such as benzene, toluene and zylenes in the ground water proved to be so high that the stripping air could not be purified with the aid of compost filters. The quantities of compost required made the process uncontrollable.

Furthermore, this method did not remove contaminants such as cyanides, phenols and ammonia from the ground water.

Recently, research into the purification of waste water from incineration plants has shown that it is possible to break down not only volatile organic compounds but also cyanides, phenols and ammonia.

Research into the biological purification of contaminated ground water may lead to the design of installations that enable contaminated ground water of differing compositions to be purified reliably without the need for intensive long-term supervision.

The project is based around a standard biological purification installation with a number of stages arranged in series. The installation must be enclosed in a housing maintained under a slight under-pressure to prevent the escape of contaminated air, in particular air contaminated by benzene. The extracted air will be purified using a compost or carbon filter.

In order to remove all components from the ground water to a sufficient degree, research will be carried out into the number of stages needed and the required residence time, the oxygen supply required and the additives necessary in each stage.

The relevant data will be obtained through regular sampling and analysis of the inputs to and outputs from the consecutive stages.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

This project has not yet been classified with EuroSciVoc.
Be the first one to suggest relevant scientific fields and help us improve our classification service

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

Data not available

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

Data not available

Coordinator

HOOGOVENS Ijmuiden B V.
EU contribution
No data
Address

1970 CA Ijmuiden
Netherlands

See on map

Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
My booklet 0 0