Air sparging is a almost always used to treat hydrocarbons (fuels and oils) contamination.
In simple terms this technique involves pumping air through water. This has 2 positive effects on hydrocarbon contamination,
- forcing the contaminant in to the air and therefor out of the water, and
- introducing oxygen in to the water, accelerating the rate that contaminant are broken down by bacteria (aerobic).
We’ve found that air sparging is most useful as part of a treatment process when combined with other techniques, however we have used it to directly treat low (but significant) concentrations of contaminated groundwater where it has achieved the desired results.
