A significant problem in the development of in-situ technologies has been and continues to be the problem of scaling-up laboratory results to field scale. Laboratory studies are limited to flasks and small columns. Taking successful results to the field has often been disappointing. The problem is that the transport of materials at actual sites is extremely complex. This complexity creates a variability in data that can swamp the results of a study. Until sufficient field information is generated to identify and account for site variability it is difficult to determine the success of field experiments. Given the cost of running field studies and the difficulty in obtaining field sites, it was decided to build an intermediate scale facility to develop and test in-situ technologies. The facility consists of a 2.5 m diameter x 4 m deep soil container (lysimeter) placed on a scale in an underground housing. The top of the soil filled container is even with the surface of the surrounding soil and exposed to the atmosphere. The soil container is heavily instrumented with a variety of detection devices. The soil in the container, which is accessible from all sides, will be contaminated with a known amount of TCE, and subsequently remediated using a variety of newly developed clean-up technologies. This project will show on a nearly field scale, the success or failure of these remediation technologies.
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