All organisations have a responsibility to avoid environmental pollution, however where pollution has occurred in the past – in this case groundwater contamination with hydrocarbons – the site organisation has a responsibility to rectify that pollutant situation through groundwater remediation and future control measures.

In these circumstances, the need for effective and efficient methods of groundwater remediation meant that the MyCelx filter cartridge system would be able to meet the requirements of the client. Furthermore, employment of the system has afforded evidence of the value of the MyCelx technology when presenting the case to the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority in an attempt to gain acceptance of the system.

An existing interception trench collected groundwater, an helical rotor pump pumped water to a collection tank. The existing helical rotor pump and level control on site was reused. The contaminated water was passed through a coalescing plate separator with high surface area vs. flow rate to conduct preliminary removal of oil and solid contaminants. The cleaned water was then passed through a 7 cartridge 10-micron sediment pre filtration filter before being polished with a seven-cartridge MyCelx Filter system (MXH-7). Refer to Figure 1 for a schematic diagram of the employed system.

This process then allowed for safe discharge of the polished water to sewer, well in accordance with the guidelines and stipulations of the Sydney Water Authority. Further results indicated that the polished water would also be safe to discharge to drain, reuse or reinject where possible.

Please see below for a schematic drawing of the employed system design.

Samples were taken at the discharge side of the pump drawing from the interception trench and from the discharge of the MyCelx filter housing. A comparison of analysis results gained from samples taken before treatment and samples taken after treatment are included below. It is noteworthy that reported levels of all analytes fell below the reported levels of initial samples taken prior to treatment. It should also be noted that all target contaminants were measured after treatment at levels in accordance with stipulated guidelines as detailed both by the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority and Sydney Water Authority for safe discharge to sewer and environment, with the exception of Benzene.

Comparison of Analysis Results Before and After Treatment