Professor Martin Reinhard is a pioneer in the development of palladium-catalyzed reductive dehalogenation as a clean-up technique for sites where groundwater is contaminated by halogenated hydrocarbons or other hazardous chemicals. He has published widely-cited papers in this field with many of his former students and post-doctoral advisees. Here, we present our extension of Martin's pioneering work by applying the palladium-catalyzed dehalogenation technology to clean-up of contaminated soils. The catalytic process is preceded by a solvent extraction step to remove contaminants from soil; following the catalytic dehalogenation, the solvent can be re-used, making this a �green� technology. We present results of two sets of experiments. First, the technology (termed remedial extraction and catalytic hydrodehalogenation, or REACH) is applied in a bench-scale semi-continuous process to soil contaminated with tetrachlorobenzene or pentachlorophenol. Second, we tested rhodium catalyst used in conjunction with palladium to convert tetrachlorobenzene to cyclohexane, rather than benzene, during the catalytic step.

Clean-up of contaminated soil by remedial extraction <i>a</i>nd catalystic hydrodehalogenation (REACH)

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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Clean-up of contaminated soil by remedial extraction and catalystic hydrodehalogenation (REACH)