Innovative geotextile contaminant barriers in infrastructure applications – Environmental protection without surface sealing

Our road and railroad infrastructure contributes to a considerable extent to the sealing of urban areas. Due to the intensive and still growing use of these traffic routes, pollutants, such as microplastics, hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and others accumulate on sealed asphalt or concrete surfaces. With each rain event, these contaminants are flushed into the sewer system (present best case) or just enter the surrounding soil and the groundwater untreated (present worst case). Innovative, large-area, permeable contaminant barriers made of geotextiles overcome the concept of piping runoff water and centralized treatment in wastewater treatment plants. By treating the water directly at the source of the contamination, surface sealing and thus interference with natural flow paths are significantly reduced. The groundwater protection measurement is therefore called “passive in-situ treatment” or “passive in-situ decontamination”. Geotextiles mechanically stabilize sorbents such as activated carbon or oil binders in a sandwich fabric. HUESKERs active geocomposites place the sorbents directly where pollutants enter the environment. The use of active geocomposites lead to a highly effective ground protection in which only a barrier against pollutants is build, but not for the carrier medium –the runoff or seepage water. Thus, no further sealing is necessary. The presentation will explain different application for large-scale permeable contaminant barriers in infrastructure based on three case studies: Field trails with filter trenches along roads in Germany, Construction of a filtration basin for road runoff in Finland, Earth structures with contaminated soils – valuable construction material instead of waste.