Bioremediation Making using of Magnesium Peroxide / Calcium Peroxide

Through bioremediation, soil lightly contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons is inoculated with a nutrient and an engineered bacteria that combine to break down the contaminants. The bacteria access the nutrients, which have attached to the hydrocarbons, and quickly and thoroughly degrade the contaminants. The average time needed to reduce contaminants to acceptable levels through bioremediation is approximately 7 to 14 days. The bioremediation process provides substantial cost savings when compared to thermal desorption or chemical fixation, and is typically used on soil with lower levels of contaminants. Materials treated through bioremediation are typically beneficially re-used as fill material.

Biological stimulants are often used to enhance the natural attenuation of environmental contaminants. Bioremediation products are commercially used to attenuate such contaminants as fuel hydrocarbon constituents and organic solvents that may bebiologically transformed or immobilized under aerobic conditions. The dissolved oxygen released from such products transforms/immobilizes the contaminants. For this reason, a slow dissolved oxygen release is preferred to increase contact with the contaminants dissolved in groundwater or adsorbed onto the formation matrix. A fast release is ineffective when trying to remove the contaminants. For example, magnesium peroxide / calcium peroxide is a potential stimulant for contaminant attenuation. However, upon hydration these peroxides tend to disassociate rapidly. In fact, magnesium/calcium peroxide can release their entire dissolved oxygen load within afew weeks of hydration. For optimum use, such stimulants must release dissolved oxygen slowly over a longer period of time, on the order of months and not weeks. There are other compounds, such as MgO₂, CaO₂ , that slowly release oxygen when chemically bonded with phosphate. This release of oxygen is a chemical process. Again, if the oxygen is released too fast, the compound is useless as a bioremediation product. While chemically-bonded products can solve the time-releasing problem, such compounds can be costly to manufacture and use in large amounts. Magnesium Peroxide have the active oxygen level as 10% commercially but Calcium Peroxide provide active oxygen level as 16%.