The project is part of a Department of Defense effort to develop new techniques to eliminate hazardous waste sites on military bases. Professors of chemical engineering George Hirasaki and Clarence Miller are leading a team that relies heavily on enhanced oil- recovery technology from the late '70s and early '80s. The technology, known as surfactant-foam remediation, was developed by Jim Lawson, who recently joined Hirasaki's staff, and other researchers at the Shell Development Company to recover oil from reservoirs that could no longer be obtained by standard methods. The technology combines surfactants, which are detergent-like substances capable of removing solvents, with air to create a foam capable of displacing pools of pollutants trapped underground. The project is one of 12 selected to participate in the Department of Defense's Advanced Applied Technology Demonstration Facility, which is based at Rice.
Surfactants are a better alternative.
So, Hirasaki, a Shell veteran of more than 25 years, turned to Lawson, his longtime Shell collegue, who understands the surfactant foam process as well as anyone. Foam has the potential to be cheaper, easier to use, and more universally applicable, said Lawson. Because many toxic pollutants are derived from hydrocarbons, it is only a short step from petroleum recovery using surfactant-foam to environmental remediation using surfactant foam. Although the technology shows promise for cleaning up polluted sites on military bases, it is still undergoing lab testing. Using a device called a transparent sand pack, Hirasaki along with Robert Szafranski, a doctoral student, test the flow of surfactant-foam through two different grain sizes of sand.