Management of Contaminated Land and Environmental Engineering

Areas of expertise

The working group is engaged in improving methods for the investigation and assessment of contaminated land. A key area is the improvement and validation of procedures to evaluate the leaching behaviour of pollutants from different environmental matrices.

The working group operates a processing pilot plant in order to produce specified testing and reference materials and to recover valuables from different waste materials.

Activities

The working group performs numerous investigations on abandoned industrial sites and former waste disposal sites. The tests are based on appropriate sampling, sample pre-treatment/preparation and subsequent analysis. A mobile laboratory equipped with adequate sampling techniques is available for on-site investigations.

The emphasis of contaminated land assessment is on the soil-groundwater exposure pathway taking into account the site-specific conditions, the mobility of pollutants and their interactions with the soil matrix.

For processing of soil, waste and raw materials a modular pilot plant in small technical scale will be extended and systematically optimised. Among others, materials for ruggedness testing and interlaboratory comparisons are being processed under varying operation of the different plant devices. Experiments to recycle valuables from waste materials (e.g. municipal solid waste incineration bottom ash, photovoltaic waste) have been conducted using the pilot plant.

The following processing steps can be carried out:

• Drying
• Crushing (breaking and milling)
• Sorting
• Classifying
• Dehydration
• Homogenisation
• Granulating
• Sample dividing

Projects

The following third-party funded projects have been or are being executed in cooperation with other BAM departments, industrial partners and universities (selection):

• Within the framework of a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FKZ 02WP0143), reference materials in quantities of approximately 6 t each were processed to develop source term determination methods for leachate prognosis.
• Wet processing of demolition waste using a jig for density separation was investigated within the framework of the EU-funded RECDEMO project. The project is aimed at reusing crushed concrete fines as aggregates for concrete production.
  www.recdemo.bam.de
• Photo-voltaic waste materials were wet-processed and valuable materials were recycled within the EU-funded RESOLVED project.
  www.resolved.bam.de.
• Within the framework of a project funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the working group was commissioned to conduct interlaboratory comparisons based on the two standard drafts E DIN 19528 (column percolation test) and E DIN 19529 (batch test) with the objective of their validation. The final report is available for download in German (Schlussbericht, PDF, 6 MB). In further projects ruggedness tests for the leaching procedure E DIN 19527 suitable for organic contaminants are being conducted. Interlaboratory comparisons for the validation of this standard are being prepared.
• An automated column percolation test device will be developed and tested by BAM within the framework of a ZIM project funded by the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations (AiF).
• Test procedures are being developed for artificial turfs used in outdoor arenas for sports in view of evaluation of their environmental compatibility. This project is funded by the Federal Institute of Sports Science (BISp).
• The aim of the project Conditions of suffosive erosion phenomena in soils (SUFFOS, www.suffos.bam.de), which is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), is to study suffosion processes in gradated soils. At BAM soil structures have been visualised and parameterised in order to derive data for numerical simulation of internal erosion phenomena.

Accreditation

Department 4 Materials and Environment is accredited as per DIN EN 17025:2005. Based on this accreditation, the working group performs sampling and leaching tests on soils and waste materials.

Collaboration in standardisation committees

Members of the working group participate in standardisation committees of DIN, CEN and ISO in the area of soil and waste investigation methods (sampling, sample pre-treatment, chemical analysis, leaching methods).

More information

Test methods and equipment

Contacts

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