Once the PCBs have been removed, drying by hot air circulation allows residual solvent to be recovered from decontaminated materials. The unit's vents are equipped with a solvent recovery system using cooling and adsorption on activated carbon. Steel, copper, and aluminium contained in the decontaminated equipment are recovered for their economic value. Costs Sanexen does not sell equipment, but rather seeks local partners to operate the process under license or in a joint venture. In Canada, this service is billed on the basis of a price per tonne for contaminated transformers.
Prices vary according to the volume and the initial degree of contamination.
The Decontaksolv technology was developed in Canada by Sanexen Environmental Services Inc., with the participation of Environment Canada's Saint-Laurent Centre and the Quebec Environment Ministry. The process has been in use for thirteen years and two units have been built. Units are modular and transportable. Decontamination work was carried out during the first ten years, by bringing the decontamination equipment to the sites where PCB inventories were located. Up to now, more than 9,000 metric tonnes of material have been decontaminated.