Waste and Remediation Cluster

1. Waste and Remediation Cluster May 11, 2010

2. Waste and Remediation Cluster Charter • What: • Group in QUESTOR organizing/managing Waste and Remediation Programs • Purpose: • Focus interested IAB members and researchers • Enhance project development and execution • Align interested parties &/or Champion(s) • Leadership/Membership: • Leadership team: • Chaired by an IAB member representative • Can be anyone from the IAB organization, an expert in that particular technology for instance • Each academic institution assigns one leadership team member to only one cluster • Nominal terms of two years • Overall Cluster membership: • Group consists of interested academics and members of IAB organizations • Members can be from any academic institution or IAB organization • Cluster Responsibilities: • Meet as appropriate • By teleconference (quarterly?) and at QUESTOR Meetings • Develop a targeted/high-graded Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Cluster • Facilitate identification of Champions for project proposals • Initial screening of pre-proposals, recommend proposals to be developed for IAB voting • Active guidance of projects during execution

3. Waste and Remediation Cluster Description • This Cluster covers new approaches involving all aspects of waste management and site remediation including waste (source) reduction, minimization and treatment, and soil and groundwater remediation • Overall Approach (Pollution Prevention Ideology) • Pollution should be prevented or reduced at the source whenever feasible • Pollution that cannot be prevented should be recycled • What cannot be recycled should be treated and disposed in an environmentally safe manner • Waste Management • Pollution Prevention: source reduction, waste minimization, toxicity reduction • Beneficial Reuse (recycle, new products, industrial residues and by products) • Treatment (chemical, physical, biological) and disposal • Site Remediation (Soil and Groundwater) • Pollutants (petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons, heavy metals, …) • Fate and transport (F&T) • Health and environmental impacts • Treatment (chemical, physical, biological) approaches (in-situ, ex-situ) • Sustainability • Economics and LCA of Waste Management and Site Remediation practices

4. Member Companies

5. Academic Partners

6. Request for Proposal (RFP) Structure • Waste Management • Reduction/Elimination (Pollution Prevention) • Beneficial Reuse (Recycle, New Products) • Treatment and Disposal • Remediation • Types of Pollutants Addressed • Fate & Transport • Health and Environmental Impacts • Treatment Approaches

7. Waste Management Request for Proposals (RFP)Reduction/Elimination (Pollution Prevention) • Product Design • Innovation in product design to reduce detrimental impacts of municipal wastes • Increased eco-design in packaging • Low hazard, non-chlorinated, non-flammable solvents • Product/Component Replacement • Replace nitrilo triacetic acid trisodium salt as chelating agent in cleaning products • Replace phosphoric acid in acid descalers • Use indigenous laterite/bauxite as a fire retardant filler for rubbers & plastics • Process Modifications • Sludge minimization techniques while biologically treating organic wastes • “Dry” cleaning systems for agricultural plastics • Establish a technology to reduce waste wood to dust as a main output (not a byproduct) from recycling • Extending life of treatment solutions to reduce chemical consumption and waste streams

8. Waste Management Request for Proposals (RFP)Beneficial Reuse (Recycle, New Products) • Digestion related (esp fertilizer) • Quantify advantages of thermophilic over mesophilic digestion • Processing digestate so it can be standardized and used as a soil conditioner • Potential for use of anaerobic digester liquids as fertilizer • Improving fertilizer value of digestate • Waste to energy • Research use of landfill gas for energy generation and transport options • Register of waste streams suitable for conversion to energy • Tallow oil cleaning to produce clean fuel • Potential reuse of treated/non-treated waste wood as biomass boiler feed • Quantifying and qualifying anaerobic and aerobic digestion compost material as fuel • Enhancing sustainability • Especially increase recovery of high value products, especially from end-of-life products • Others • Study tumble growth agglomeration as applied to manufacture of FuelForm products • Methods for producing iron sulfates from industrial wastes (ie galvanizers’ wastes) • Mechanical systems to separate domestic waste from valuable recyclables • Alternative processes for plasterboard and potential uses for recycled powder

9. Waste Management Request for Proposals (RFP)Treatment and Disposal • Includes chemical, physical, biological treatment as well as disposal • Biological waste sludge reduction – both aerobic and anaerobic • Technologies to improve preparation of wastes for anaerobic digestion • Technologies for improved treatment of liquid wastes • Minimizing heavy crude oil impacts in the petroleum industry

10. Remediation Request for Proposals (RFP) • Pollutants • Soil remediation processes to remove organics (TPH, PAHs, BTEX) and inorganics (As, Pb, Cd…). Concentrate them in ultra-fine particles. • Characterization and stabilization of pollutants in harbor dredgings • Fate and Transport • Odor dispersion modeling • Factors that affect vapor intrusion of VOC’s • Biofuels • Health and Environmental Impacts • Study kerosene breakdown into volatile human breathing zone contaminants • Research on Nickel in soils – uptake by plants; availability & accessibility re human health • Factors for remote detection and quantification of ecological diversity

11. Remediation Request for Proposals (RFP)Treatment Approaches • Ex-situ • Enhancing ex-situ mobile groundwater systems for removal of dissolved TPH & BTEX • Soil washing utilizing a jet pump scrubber • Solidification/stabilization of heavy-end organic and cyanide impacted materials • In-situ • Enhancing performance of in-situ breakdown of TPH & BETX • Develop water soluble supported microbial applications for enhanced TPH breakdown in soils • Range of electron donors for in-situ bio-chemical reduction • New ideas for in-situ remediation of fine grained sediments, layered systems and fractured/dual porosity systems • In-situ remediation of ether oxygenates • Investigate Fenton’s reagent in-situ remediation initiation • Business model for new soil remediation processes • Assessment of TPH and PAH mineralization rates using catalyzed chemical oxidation reagents • Tools to document sustainable remediation • Cost effective MTBE clean-up