On 17th September 2008 at the Brownfield Briefing Remediation Innovation Awards 2008, Terra Vac won the most coveted award ‘Most Innovative Remediation Method’ for the development and use of Six Phase Heating (SPH) technology.

The technology allows contaminated land to be cleaned up whilst avoiding environmentally unfriendly excavation and transport to landfill. It is good for the environment and opens up much needed brownfield land for development in areas where space is at a premium.

The equipment was used to decontaminate soil and groundwater at a site near Sheffield, which was acquired by Taylor Wimpey for residential development. Over a 20-week period more than 1,662 litres of hazardous contaminants were safely recovered from the sub-soils. This represents more than 70 times the original required site-specific target levels. Groundwater concentrations of contaminants showed a dramatic net reduction of over 99%.

Andy Fraser, Director of Terra Vac, said:

“Six Phase Heating is an exciting new technology and we’re very pleased to win the Most Innovative Remediation Method Award. The use of SPH allowed us to treat over 70 times the amount of contaminant that was initially thought to be present, whilst still keeping within the budget. We were also able to hand over the site to our client three months early.

One of the judges, Phil Crowcroft, partner, Environmental Resources Management (ERM) and chair of SiLC, said:

“It’s a very real advance in the application of new technology.....truly a new technology”.

The completed project is also the subject of a CL:AIRE Technology Demonstration Project (TDP 26). A download of the Project Bulletin is available here.

Download Project Bulletin