Impact of biodegradable trenching slurry on iron treatment wall performance

Biodegradable trenching slurries have been proposed as a cost effective method for the emplacement of reactive treatment barriers. In this study, the impact of a bio-polymer slurry on the ability of zero-valent iron to reductively dehalogenate trichloroethene was measured. First-order trichloroethene degradation rates were determined for three types of iron, with and without slurry in batch reactions. For the commercial grade iron, a significant difference was determined between the surface area normalized rate without slurry (1.78E-4 L m⁻² hr⁻¹) and with slurry (1.23E-4 L m⁻² hr⁻¹). However, no significant difference was determined with or without bio-slurry for the reagent grade irons.