World's Largest bioscreen realized in Europoort-Rotterdam
28-05-2008: In May BioSoil started the realization of a bioscreen in the Port of Rotterdam (Europoort) area. The screen will have a length of about 275 meters and a depth of approx. 19 meters. These dimensions make it the biggest bioscreen in the world. The largest up till now has a length of 100 meters.

The bioscreen has to prevent the leakage of groundwater polluted with oil products and the lead replacer MTBE into the adjacent harbour. It also has to prevent the spread of the pollutants under neighbouring industrial sites. To control the quality of the groundwater that leaves the bioscreen an equally long row of so called monitoring filters will be installed.

A bioscreen is a zone in the soil in which the conditions for natural degradation of specific contaminants are optimized. They are installed downstream from the polluted site to prevent the spread of contaminated water. It forms a virtual fence around a polluted site.

In practice a bioscreen consists of long rows of filters and water infiltration and extraction wells. A network of tubing connects the filters to a central steering unit. Thanks to this system groundwater can be circulated. Addition of pH regulators, minerals, nutrients and other additives to the circulated water makes it possible to optimize and control the conditions in the soil.

In nearly every soil micro-organism are present that can 'eat'pollutants and thereby can transform them in harmless substances. Under natural conditions this is a very slow process. When left alone it will typically take many centuries before significant levels of degradation are reached. Optimization of the conditions for natural degradation speeds up this process tremendously and brings back the remediation time to acceptable periods (several month to a few years).

In the design and dimensioning of a bioscreen many soil and location specific factors have to be taken into account. The realization of a bioscreen is therefore very difficult. BioSoil is specialized in the design and realization of bioscreens.
More information: Jan van den Boogaart, projectleader/manager( tel:+-31-(0)78-6820140 or j.vandenboogaart@biosoil.com)