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Water Remediation Techniques

Water remediation is used to clean water from contamination of metals, excess nutrients and organic compounds. By remediation, water can be reused for human consumption and use. Furthermore, remediation is used before water disposal from industries and municipalities to keep contaminants out of the environment. There are several techniques used to remediate water, which are clumped into two types: in-situ and ex-situ. In-situ is remediating water at the site, while ex-situ is recovering the water and treating it somewhere else.

  1. Phytoremediation

    • Phytoremediation is an in-situ technique using plants to uptake contaminants in water. Plants are known to degrade or trap pollutants by filtering them out and storing them predominantly in their leaves. The downside of phytoremediation is that plants must be removed from the site or they will release the toxins back into the water after they die.

    Bioaugmentation

    • Bioaugmentation is one form of bioremediation that uses specialized and selected microorganisms to remove pollutants from water in-situ. Bacteria and algae can breakdown compounds in toxic states and then use it as a food supply for growth or reproduction. The process turns soluble pollutants into insoluble biomass that can be mechanically removed.

    Ozone and Oxygen Gas Injection

    • Injecting ozone into groundwater is a useful in-situ technique that is efficient and cost-effective. Ozone is known to be a powerful oxidizer that chemically reacts with pesticides, volatile organic compounds and other toxins in water. This procedure delivers ozone by applying a high voltage into the subsurface below the ground water table. The ozone then moves up and outward into the groundwater and transforms the pollutants into harmless compounds.

    Chemical Precipitation

    • Chemical precipitation has long been used to remove metals that contaminate water. This ex-situ technique uses a series of steps to transform insoluble metal salts to soluble metal salts that will then take on a solid form. From there, the metals can be filtered out or clarified.

    Pump and Treat

    • This type of remediation technique employs pumping out ground water and treating it on the surface. This ex-situ application is a widely used groundwater remediation tactic; however, its effectiveness has not been completely proven. This is because the geology surrounding the groundwater may be contaminated as well, rendering this technique as useless, unless the groundwater is contained to a specific site.

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