Cleaner ground realities
An electrical technique developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA, would help clean contaminated land. In this process, electric current is employed to heat the soil that leads to evaporating the moisture. Thus, volatile contaminants are removed from soil particles. Contaminated steam is then collected above ground and treated. Researchers are now developing a method to destroy non-volatile contaminants. They would use high voltages to destroy organic contaminants such as grease, pesticides and oil.