You are here:
BESCORP SOIL WASHING SYSTEM FOR LEAD BATTERY SITE TREATMENT - APPLICATIONS ANALYSIS REPORT
Citation:
Gaire, R. J. BESCORP SOIL WASHING SYSTEM FOR LEAD BATTERY SITE TREATMENT - APPLICATIONS ANALYSIS REPORT. EPA/540/AR-93/503, 1995.
Impact/Purpose:
information.
Description:
This report evaluates the Brice Environmental Services Corporation (BESCORP) Soil Washing System (BSWS) and Its applicability in remediating lead-contaminated soil at lead battery sites. It presents performance and economic data, developed from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund Innovative Technology Evaluation (SITE) Demonstration (three test runs) and additional data provided by the developer. The Demonstration took place at the Alaskan Battery Enterprises (ABE) Site in Fairbanks, Alaska. The original BSWS, built to process 20 tons per hour (tph) of soil when removing silt and clay from uncontaminated sandy soil, was a water-based, volume-reduction unit that employed agitation, attrition scrubbing, high pressure washing, and particle size separation. This system was modified to remove lead, lead compounds, and battery casing chips through the addition of a density separator and a casing chip separator. The modified system capacity is about 5 tph, primarily due to restricted flow in the casing chip separator. Products from the process included washed gravel and sand, a metallic-lead fraction, battery casing chips, a water effluent suitable for discharge to a POTW, and a lead-contaminated sludge effluent for RCRA disposal or posttreatment. The metallic lead and casing chips were potentially recyclable to lead smelters. However, this is not a current industry practice. The system, operating from 2 to 4 tph, generated a washed gravel product, free of fine material, that passed EPA’s redeposit cleanup goals for total lead (less than 1,000 mg/kg) and TCLP lead (less than 5 mg/L). The washed sand did not achieve the cleanup goals due to the presence of contaminated fines that the system did not separate from the sand fraction. BESCORP did not anticipate this result during the Demonstration because the feed soil differed significantly from the soil samples tested in the preDemonstration treatability study. Economic data for a commercial 20-tph unit processing wastes similar to those treated in the SITE Demonstration, including disposal of waste effluents, project operating costs to be about $1 65/ton of soil (dry basis) containing 6.6 wt percent moisture. This figure does not reflect any revenue from recycling of metallic lead or casing chips.