Potential of Riverbank filtration to remove explosive chemicals

Riverbank filtration (RBF) is a low-cost and efficient water treatment technology for the removal of many surface water pollutants. It is widely used by water utilities in developed as well as developing countries to produce drinking water from surface water which is often polluted. In this research, the presence of explosive chemicals in riverbed sediments or in flowing water is considered as a potential threat to the quality of filtrate produced from RBF systems. For this, degradation experiments were conducted to examine the persistence of these compounds in river sediments. In addition, a model RBF system was setup to examine the breakthrough of the major explosive chemicals and their metabolites. Results show that HMX was the most mobile and compound followed by RDX. TNT and DNT degraded quickly. Thus, the presence of RDX and HMX could produce breakthroughs in high capacity collector wells located along riverbanks.