Monitoring the Efficiency of Soil Clean-up Bioprocesses

Summary

Bioprocesses for treating polluted soils are recognised as being inexpensive alternatives to thermal or physico-chemical processes. However, over the last ten years or so, they have been used less and less in the in situ remediation of polluted sites, and to a lesser extent in the ex situ sector. This is mainly due to the uncertainties associated with their use (verification that the remediation objectives have been achieved and control of the process are difficult). The aim of the study is to identify reliable tools capable of reducing these uncertainties. On the basis of expert advice (from Europe and Canada), the study selected two categories of tools (metrological and interpretation), and evaluated them, alone or in combination, in terms of verifying the achievement of depollution objectives on the one hand, and optimal bioprocess control on the other.