water Article A Field Pilot Study on Treating Groundwater Contaminated with Sulfolane Using UV/H2O2 Linlong Yu 1, Sobhan Iranmanesh 1, Ian Keir 2 and Gopal Achari 1,* 1 Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada;
[email protected] (L.Y.);
[email protected] (S.I.) 2 Bonavista Energy Corporation (formerly), 525 8 Ave SW Suite 1500, Calgary, AB T2P 1G1, Canada;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +1-403-220-6599 Received: 3 April 2020; Accepted: 21 April 2020; Published: 23 April 2020 Abstract: Sulfolane is an emerging contaminant in the groundwater and soil nearby gas plants, which has attracted much attention from many researchers and regulatory agencies in the past ten years. In this paper, a field pilot-scale ultraviolet (UV)/hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) system was investigated for treating sulfolane contaminated groundwater. Different groundwater, as well as different operational parameters such as influent sulfolane concentration, H2O2 dosage, and water flow rates, were studied. The results showed that a pilot-scale UV/H2O2 system can successfully treat sulfolane contaminated groundwater in the field, although the presence of iron and other groundwater limited the process efficiency. The lowest electrical energy per order of reduction for 3 1 treating sulfolane in groundwater by using the pilot-scale UV/H2O2 system was 1.4 kWh m− order− . The investigated sulfolane initial concentrations and the water flow rates did not impact the sulfolane degradation. The enhancement of sulfolane degradation in an open reservoir by adding ozone was not observed in this study.