REMEDIATION OF CONTAMINATED AQUIFERS BY BIOLOGICAL AND ADVANCED OXIDATION PROCESSES: THE AQUATEC PROJECT

The increasing production and use of oil-derived fuels have led to the widespread release of these compounds into the environment. This contamination is particularly important for groundwaters because of accidental gasoline releases from underground storage tanks and from pipelines in petrochemical industry sites. In the present work remediation of groundwater at a petrochemical industrial site was investigated by both UV based AOPs and by bioremediation. The main objective of the study was to compare the effectiveness of some UV-based AOPs (medium pressure UV, UV/H2O2 and UV/TiO2), to verify the effectiveness of bioremediation and to identify the microbial species responsible for MTBE degradation.