The project entitled: "New Technologies for the Remediation of Halogenated Organics" that is described below has been competed. The project 6 research team has begun a new project, entitled: "Characterization of Wind Blown Dust from Tailings and other Mining Operations in the Southwestern United States".

In semiarid environments such as the Southwestern US, mining operations, including crushing, grinding, smelting, refining, and tailings management, are an important source of airborne metal and metalloid contaminants.  For example, it has been estimated that 40% of the total atmospheric emissions of arsenic, an element of particular interest to the UA SBRP, arise from smelting operations (Alloway and Ayres, 1997; Lv et al., 2006).

To assess the role of atmospheric dust in the transport of metal contaminants from mine operations, micro-orifice uniform deposit impactor (MOUDI) samplers are being used to collect atmospheric aerosols in ten size fractions, ranging from 0.056 mm to 18 mm in aerodynamic diameter, at two contaminated mine tailings sites (ASARCO Hayden AZ, and Iron King, Dewey-Humboldt AZ).  The separate fractions yield size-fractionated mass concentration data for toxic metals and metalloids (mainly As, Pb, Cr, and Cd), as well as other physicochemical characteristics that allow for potential source identification.

Field Sites:  ASARCO Hayden Plant, Hayden/Winkelman, Arizona , and Iron King Mine and the Humboldt Smelter, Dewey-Humboldt Arizona.

Figure shows a fixed-bed three-phase reactor for the electrochemical destruction of chlorinated hydrocarbons present in SVE gases.

Background
There are difficulties associated with the destruction or final disposal of chlorinated solvents that are traditionally recovered from contaminated sites via pump and treat or soil vapor extraction methods. Pump and treat and soil vapor extraction merely transfer contaminants from one medium to another. There is a significant need for the development of new destructive treatment technologies to help clean up the nation's long list of Superfund sites.