A contaminated Chinese lake is to serve as a test bed for a new environmental cleanup technology involving ozone bubbles.
The lake of Taihu, next to the 4.5 million-strong city of Wuxi, has been contaminated by a variety of pollutants for years from the industrial businesses in Wuxi. It will use a system known as heightened ozonation, in which micro bubbles of ozone pass through the target material to free pollutants.
The technology, developed at the University of Utah, uses a pressurised metal vessel designed to produce ozone micro bubbles by repeated pressurization and pressure release with ozone gas. The micro bubbles help to break down hydrocarbons.
A chelating agent is then passed through the target material to remove metal contaminants, followed by lime, which is used to extract them from the material altogether.
The technology will clean up soil at the Chinese site, which will be used for tree planting on public land. The project will take about three months. Although the system is currently being used to treat soil, it can be expanded to cover water, algae and sewage waste.
The work is being conducted by Chinese environmental cleanup giant Honde. If it is successful, it will be replicated at other sites around the lake, to test it on other types of pollutant.