Future of In-Situ Vitrification Technology Applicable to Environmental Preservation

In-Situ Vitrification (ISV) is an innovative remediation technology which melts, contaminated soil and buried wastes in-situ with electrical power to form an inert glass product. Typical processing temperature of ISV is 1, 600-2, 000°C, and the ISV technology can process simultaneously hazardous organics, inorganics (heavy metals), radioactive contaminants, and mixtures of these. The ISV treatment results in the removal or pyrolytic destruction of hazardous organic compounds, and heavy metals are either removed or permanently immobilized in a high quality, high strength, glassy residual product.The ISV process can tolerate the presence of rubble, metal, and combustible solids and liquids, and averaged volume reduction is 25-45%. The ISV is also an emerging technology for generation of vitrified underground barriers, which can be applied as a new civil engineering technology for environmental preservation.