ELab Logo Current Research: 
W
ASTE REMEDIATION and
ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION
MIT Energy Laboratory

Hazardous wastes are both legacies and current by-products of energy production and utilization. Most industries--including energy-intensive ones such as petroleum refining, bulk and fine chemicals manufacture, pharmaceuticals production, and metals recovery and processing--continue to produce significant quantities of organic and metals-containing wastes that must be destroyed or detoxified. Further, the need to destroy obsolete chemical weapons and to clean up the US Department of Energy nuclear weapons complex present major challenges.

In the Energy Laboratory's program on Waste Remediation and Environmental Restoration, scientists and engineers are conducting fundamental and applied research on many facets of the waste destruction process. Work relating to waste prevention and air emission control appears in the sections on environmental research and industrial processing research.

Researchers are developing techniques and instruments for characterizing and monitoring the chemical nature of the waste as well as the geotechnical nature of the site. One focus is development of optical sensors for the remote monitoring of mixed radioactive and organic wastes in soils. Work to analyze the toxicity of the waste and to determine potential health hazard is performed in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Health Sciences.

Other research aims to understand the fate and transport of chemicals in the environment, with a focus on characterizing the distribution and physical state of the dispersed materials in groundwater and in soils. These efforts are led by researchers from the Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Water Resources and Hydrodynamics.

Various research teams are examining diverse technologies for treating key chemical and contaminated soils. Approaches under study include the molten metal processing of mixed radioactive and organic wastes; the molecular design, synthesis, and testing of star polymers for selective extraction of organic wastes; and the photocatalytic decomposition of halogenated organics using nanostructured titania. Studies of incineration involve fundamental work to increase efficiency and reduce emissions and applied work that has led to new methods of monitoring incinerator efficiency. Other research is investigating sub- and supercritical water oxidation as a promising and innovative technology for the efficient destruction of a wide range of industrial and military hazardous wastes.

waste destruction by scwo
Waste destruction by supercritical water oxidation (SCWO).

Another research area involves integrated modeling to match technologies to site-specific remediation problems. Topics include uncertainty and risk assessment, simulation of treatment processes and their economics, and development of methodologies for trade-off analysis and decisionmaking involving various stakeholders.

Selected Participants

sulfate salts
Sulfate salts collected during shock crystallization experiments in supercritical water.


Back to Current Research Areas or
the Energy Laboratory Home Page.