PaulErickson
Director of Research & Development
REGENESIS
Dr. Paul Erickson is the Director of Research & Development with REGENESIS, overseeing the commercialization of new environmental solutions to address complex remediation challenges. In his time with REGENESIS, Dr. Erickson led the development of a number remediation products and technologies, including PetroFix and FluxTracer. Dr. Erickson earned a BS degree in Chemistry from Florida State University, a Masters in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in Environmental Chemistry from ETH Zurich. He is an author on over 20 peer-reviewed scientific publications mainly in the area of environmental chemistry.
Employing Solid Phase Colloidal Organic Amendments for Sustained Biodegradation in Permeable Reactive Barriers
Activated carbon-based permeable barriers are effective at intercepting groundwater plumes and retarding contaminant migration. However, activated carbon does not directly promote degradation and in higher contaminant flux environments the carbon particle surfaces can become saturated with diminished barrier performance. Commonly used soluble fermentable remediation amendments have limited persistence, and longer acting substances competitively sorb to the carbon particles and this precludes their use with activated carbon. This work describes the development, modeling, and field demonstration of a novel plant-based, sub-micron fermentable remediation amendment. This presentation will describe the development work and initial field deployment of this approach. Areas to be covered include treatability studies with chlorinated ethenes and a two-year pilot study. Pilot studies successfully demonstrated the ability to co-apply activated carbon and ERD amendments at low injection pressures. Chemical and microbial monitoring data verified the occurrence of reductive dechlorination with ethene production continuing more than two years after application.