Soil decontamination

BOOS Košice offers its services in the field of rock environment, underground and surface water, concrete and other reinforced areas, construction walls, metal materials and technological lines contaminated with raw oil, oil based products and some chemicals.

Decontamination is achieved by a new progressive method developed by our company. Essentially, its principal is very simple. Special selected kinds of earthworms Eisenia foetida produce enzymes capable of breaking down various contaminants and loosening some chemical bindings. These are subsequently isolated, the, rock, underground and surface water, areas, walls are saturated with a dilution of these enzymes the unwished substances by a gradual shortening the hydrocarbon chain to the final decay products, i.e. carbon dioxide and water. Thus, decontamination is liquidated direct on the spot ("in situ") resulting in reducing the decontamination cost. There is no cost for excavation, transport of contaminated materials to areas of decontamination, purchase and transport of materials for filling the excavated area and dumping the dangerous waste. Another significant factor is also the fact that the risk of eventual crashes at transporting dangerous waste is absolutely eliminated meaning an increased safety of the work.

The enzymatic method of decontamination has been successfully applied from 1995. Beside the aforementioned reduction of the financial cost, its advantage is also its speed and efficiency without any secondary environmental decontamination as is the case with bacterial methods. The decontamination speed depends on the decontamination concentration and the porosity and permeability of the environment. Definitely, it is a matter of weeks and maximum months where other methods require years.
Outside of Slovakia, our method has been successfully applied also abroad (Czech Republic, Hungary and Netherlands). Superstructures in some railway station in the Czech Republic, airport runways in Budapest and Debrecen in Hungary and filling stations in Netherlands were contaminated.

A lot of actions have been finished in Slovakia, one deserving attention was the decontamination of pesticides in the Slovak Karst and of old mud settling ponds in the oil industry where a decontamination of more than 190,000 mg / 1 kg dry residues (!!!) had to be liquidated. The work here took four months with a winter break. Next mud settling ponds are prepared for decontamination. Also the decontamination of the building of oil service of Dopravný podnik (Public Transport Company) in Bratislava was interesting within which oil tanks ands complete floors and walls were cleaned the contamination of which achieved the level of 50.000 mg / 1 kg dry residues and even more.

The field decontamination work is to be planned for the period from April to November. The temperatures in winter decrease under 7 - 8°C and the enzymes loose their efficiency which is regenerated again when the temperature increases. For this reason, we recommend to perform decontamination in closed spaces sometimes also in combination with enzymes heating-up.

Unit financial cost of decontamination is calculated for 1 m3 of rock, for 1 m3 underground and surface water and for 1 m2 of area and walls in dependence on the decontamination concentration, chemical composition of contaminants and access to the contaminated environment.

We are ready to make a presentation of our method in a place of decontamination specified by you. However, we intend to make the presentation only to show a substantial decrease of decontamination concentration and not up to values set by the relevant environmental bodies as reducing contamination values under 3.000 mg / 1 kg dry residuals is most time consuming. The period at the end of April is the most suitable time as acceptable climatic conditions may be assumed.

When a contract is signed, we are able to work at several mud settling ponds paralell, and thus substantially to accelerate the work. To start our work, we need to have results of the contamination survey provided, i.e. its area and space extension, contamination cubature calculation to assess the total cost of work, chemical composition of contaminants to prepare optimum enzyme mixture and finally, to have access to water and power.

Decontamination in practice

ESPAŇA 2005

Decontamination of gas stations

in Holland on the polder. It is obvious that the decontamination runs without destructing the filling stations and in full operation!! The owner is not loosing a cent and the price is ten times lower. You see the ends of saturation tubes on the background of the paving.

Left, the rail before the decontamination. Right, the rail after the decontamination.

Decontamination of the reailway. Right below, contaminated rail, left up, after a 15 - 2%0 minutes of enzyme spray. Everything without any destruction, no exchange of macadam!

Decontamination of a narrow, 17 m deep abyss "Snežná jama (Snow pit)" in the Slovak Karst contaminated with nitrophenols. No other method is possible!! Continued decontamination of Snežná jama - climbing down and spraying walls and the bottom with enzymes. Decontamination decreased from 350 mg / kg to 0,5 mg / kg in two weeks!!

Decontamination of a meadow in the protected area - Netherlands. Ends of saturation tubes can be seen. Example of the decontamination of a vertical wall of a silo contaminated with PCB. Special enzymes penetrate concrete and the contamination of 38 ppm / kg liquidated to 0.25 ppm in two weeks.

Decontamination under the building. Conventional "dredger" decontamination would require a demolition of the building and dredging contaminated foundations. With the enzymatic method, we drilled saturation holes of 30 mm around the building and the contamination of 76.000 mg / kg was decreased to 50 mg / kg in one month. Decontamination of a farm concrete area contaminated with a mixture of NEL a PCB substances. A simple spray liquidated the contamination into the depth of 70 to 100 cm in the course of two weeks.