Perchlorate has emerged in recent years to become a significant new threat to drinking water supplies and the environment and its contamination of groundwater has been estimated to potentially affect the drinking water supplies of at least 12 million people in the United States. The use of bioreactors based on anaerobic biochemical reduction processes has been evaluated as the most promising treatment technology. However, the treatment by bioreactors poses toxicological problems by the microbes, not generally accepted to the public and needs an additional treatment. These biochemical processes are naturally occurring but slow because of insufficient electron donors. Lynntech, Inc. proposes a technology, which uses nanoscale iron particles to generate dissolved hydrogen as the electron donor for the indigenous anaerobic microbes in the subsurface environment so that the natural biodegradation can be sufficient to remove perchlorate to a safe level. The nanoscale iron particles due to its size can reach pores easily, supply electrons to the anaerobic microbes in regions otherwise unreachable, and then are retrieved by pumping. This technology requires no construction of bioreactors specifically designed for the perchlorate removal but utilizes the subsurface environment as a naturally occurring anaerobic reactor so that the treatment cost will be drastically reduced.
This technology will be used by regulatory agencies like EPA, DOE, DOD and NASA, of which facilities have been found to be contaminated with perchlorates. Successful development of this technology can potentially be used in treating water contaminated with other oxidized contaminants in water such as nitrate, bromate and chlorate.
