Environmental issues are everyone’s concern and BAE SYSTEMS takes its global responsibility to create a cleaner world very seriously. Soil contaminated with hydrocarbons, such as petrol, diesel and engine oil, is harmful to the environment and cleaning it presents a number of difficulties, not least, destroying the soil and the creation of pollutant gases. Our Soil Remediation Unit (SRU), is the first of its kind to be sited in the UK and is capable of treating hydrocarbon and explosive contaminated soil.
The first thing to be said is that it is not a soil incinerator. The soil, passed through the unit at a maximum of 22 tonnes an hour, is heated just sufficiently to drive off contaminants. Gases are filtered free of dusts and destroyed at temperatures in excess of 850 deg C in the plant's after-burner unit carefully controlling and monitoring emissions online.
The end result can look no different to the soil that went into the unit but is free of contaminants and sterile, suitable for use as engineering fill or for resale. The treatment is quick and the cleanup level is excellent. The unit is transportable (with the necessary permissions) so that soil can be treated at source, with no export and import haulage costs. Although contaminated gases are destroyed at high temperatures, the soil itself is not destroyed since it is only heated sufficiently to drive off the contamination (max 450 deg C).
Although the SRU is not suitable for the treatment of inorganic contaminants such as heavy metals or asbestos, it can be used to clear hydrocarbon concentrations of 1-3%. And as a complementary technology to techniques such as vacuum extraction and bioremediation, it can play a major role in rehabilitating land that would otherwise be unfit for future use.
