Abstract
MTBE (methyl-tert-butyl-ether) is the most important fuel additive to have been used in the USA and Germany within the last 20 years. In the last 3 years, California and some other American states have substituted MTBE by ethanol. In Germany MTBE was replaced by ETBE (ethyl-tert-butyl-ether). Due to widespread MTBE use, spills from underground fuel tanks locally has caused intensive groundwater contamination, which is favoured by the tracer-like behaviour of the compound. In cases of remediation needs, MTBE is difficult to clean due to its physical-chemical-biological characteristics. The possible remediation technologies are classified and described. These technologies can be differentiated into “pump-and-treat measures” and “alternative technologies”. For groundwater cleaning applying pump-and-treat, several procedures can be chosen. However, in most cases stripping is used, which results in high costs for cleaning of the stripped air. Regarding alternative technologies, a lot of lessons have been learnt in optimizing the biological technologies over the last 5 years. Since MTBE-degrading bacteria at most sites have developed some years after the spill event, biostimulation by biobarrier techniques have a good chance of cleaning MTBE-contaminated groundwater by an in-situ method. In the case of successful remediation, large amounts of costs can be saved compared to pump-and-treat applications.
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Stupp, H. (2007). Remediation Technologies and Costs for Cleaning MTBE Contaminated Groundwater. In: Barceló, D. (eds) Fuel Oxygenates. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72641-8_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72641-8_11
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