9700318 With passage of the Ocean Dumping Act and the lack of containment facilities, the disposal of nearly 7 million tons of dredged sediments per year become a major problem for the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. The dredged sediments in a slurry form need to be dewatered, remediated, and disposed. The contaminants (heavy metals and organics) in the dredged sediments are usually attached to the clay and silt fractions. The action of applied ultrasound techniques, coupled with extraction under partial vacuum, is proposed in this study to remove contaminants and water from dredged residues. A complete treatment technology with three different processes is proposed for commercial implementation/. In this research, two processes involving ultrasound will be evaluated. In the first process, the fines near the ultrasound probe are separated from the bulk dredged suspension and are removed using sub-atmospheric pressure. In the second process, the fines are decontaminated and contaminants in water are removed using sub-atmospheric pressure. The remediated soil can be ocean- dumped as clean material or used in construction. The extracted organic and inorganic waste will be concentrated using membrane technology and disposed of in hazardous waste landfills. This technology can be easily added directly into a dredging vessel to minimize material handling. ***
