A Study for Remediation of Railroad Ballast Gravel Using Dry Washing Method

Abstract

This study proposes a newly developed dry washing method for removing pollutants such as total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) and oxidized iron from the surface of ballast gravel. A batch-type dry washing method showed a good performance in a previous study. In this study, a continuous-type dry washing system, instead of a batch-type system, was prepared to improve the efficiency of the system. A drier and a separator were also applied to this system as pre-treatment process, and the performance of this system was evaluated. In this experiment, blasting media was blasted on the polluted gravels through 12 nozzles by a pressure of 5-6kg/cm 2 for 20-30 mins to remove TPH and oxidized iron. It was found to be possible to remove 80-90% of TPH and oxidized iron by using this system. Several ways to improve the performance were suggested in this study.