Solar Sippers in Arkansas

A facility in Arkansas was built over an old oil refinery. The soil on the site was impacted with hydrocarbons. A pump-and-treat system was installed at the facility to remediate the oil, and after nearly a decade of operation, was found to extract only trace amounts of oil from the subsurface. Leppert Associates was asked to analyze the pump-and-treat system and provide recommendations. Leppert Associates recommended a change in extraction technology to better address the distributed nature of the hydrocarbon contamination.

Leppert Associates partnered with Geotech Environmental to develop solar sipper technology into a competitive alternative to pump-and-treat systems. Solar sippers extract oil by being more buoyant than the groundwater but less buoyant than the oil. The inlet for the pump sits immediately above the oil-water interface and allows the pump to extract only oil in a low-energy fashion. By placing many of there solar sipper wells throughout the site, oil can be extracted effectively from the site.

Based on measurements of oil collected from the solar sipper units and projections of quantities removed by the pump-and-treat system, the solar sippers have increased oil extraction two-fold. Additionally, the solar sippers run on solar power, saving the electrical costs of running groundwater pumps.