Scrubbing Toxic Soil with Sound Waves
by Jacob Gordon, Nashville, TN 
on 09. 7.06
A young scientist in Sydney has developed a way to clean up polluted soil with sound waves. Andrea Sosa Pintos, a researcher at CSIRO Industrial Physics has developed a new method that she claims can break down into harmless elements some of the most nefarious industrial products and. As power stations, chemical factories, and mineral extractors release contaminants in the complex matrix of the soil, remediating these pollutants (like PCBs and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) has been a longstanding problem. Even bioremediation, an environmentally friendly method that puts microorganisms to work eating pollutants such as petroleum waste, can be time consuming. Using ultrasound can process soil quickly and can be assembled into a mobile unit that could fit into the back of a truck. Pintos’ project is a finalist in the Fresh Science competition. CSIRO, Australia’s lead scientific body, has been something of a hotbed for eco-oriented advances, including a suitcase-sized, solar-powered hydrogen factory, and a biomimetic compound based on the springy substance in fleas’ knees. :: New Scientist via Hugg
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How potentially amazing is this? This is the best thing I've read this week - if it pans out. More exciting even, than the watered-down eco-bill passed in California, as this has the potential to do a whole lot more good in a much shorter amount of time. Once again proving that industry is going to make greater strides than government each and every time. Sad but true.
Yea, government always seems to be slow to act. Hopefully industry is realizing it's in their best interest to have a healthy and sustainable planet.
Bench-scale in-situ remediation tech of this sort typically burps on the material handling. The choice is to dig up, store and deliver hundred truckloads of dirty soil to the off-site treatment process, going through residential areas enroute, and then haul the clean stuff back; or, build the processing equipment on the contaminated site periphery (often in a residential area) and do rotating "sand castles" of treated soil, with backfills of treated earth. The latter exposes neighbors to lots of noise, power consumption, vapors,etc.