Sammanfattning

The use of biochar to stabilize soil contaminants is emerging as a technique for remediation of contaminated soils. In this study, an environmental assessment of systems where biochar produced from wood waste with energy recovery is used for remediation of soils contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and metal(loid)s was performed. Two soil remediation options with biochar (on-and off-site) are considered and compared to landfilling. The assessment combined material and energy flow analysis (MEFA), life cycle assess-ment (LCA), and substance flow analysis (SFA). The MEFA indicated that on-site remediation can save fuel and backfill material compared to off-site remediation and landfilling. However, the net energy production by pyrol-ysis of wood waste for biochar production is 38% lower than incineration. The LCA showed that both on-site and off-site remediation with biochar performed better than landfilling in 10 of the 12 environmental impact catego-ries, with on-site remediation performing best. Remediation with biochar provided substantial reductions in cli-mate change impact in the studied context, owing to biochar carbon sequestration being up to 4.5 times larger than direct greenhouse gas emissions from the systems. The two biochar systems showed increased impacts only in ionizing radiation and fossils because of increased electricity consumption for biochar production. They also resulted in increased biomass demand to maintain energy production. The SFA indicated that leaching of PAH from the remediated soil was lower than from landfilled soil. For metal(loid)s, no straightforward conclusion could be made, as biochar had different effects on their leaching and for some elements the results were sensitive to water infiltration assumptions. Hence, the reuse of biocharremediated soils requires further evaluation, with site-specific information. Overall, in Sweden's current context, the biochar remediation technique is an environmentally promising alternative to landfilling worth investigating further.(c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Nyckelord

Metal(loid)s; Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; Material and energy flow analysis; Life cycle assessment; Substance flow analysis

Publicerad i

Science of the Total Environment
2021, Volym: 776, artikelnummer: 145953
Utgivare: ELSEVIER

SLU författare

• Sundberg, Cecilia

  • Institutionen för energi och teknik, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    
  • Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH)

Globala målen

SDG7 Säkerställa tillgång till ekonomiskt överkomlig, tillförlitlig, hållbar och modern energi för alla
SDG15 Skydda, återställa och främja ett hållbart nyttjande av landbaserade ekosystem, hållbart bruka skogar, bekämpa ökenspridning, hejda och vrida tillbaka markförstöringen samt hejda förlusten av biologisk mångfald
SDG13 Vidta omedelbara åtgärder för att bekämpa klimatförändringarna och dess konsekvenser


UKÄ forskningsämne

Miljövetenskap


Publikationens identifierare

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145953

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/112072