The US Agency for International Development (USAID) on February 19 announced that it has contracted with TerraTherm Inc. to carry out thermal remediation of dioxin at Da Nang airport in the central city of the same name.

TerraTherm's remediation technology plays a vital role in the US-funded project's efforts to clean up dioxin contamination from Agent Orange the airport where it was stored and handled during the war, according to USAID’s press release.

The agency is working in close coordination with the Vietnamese Government and other contractors to implement this ongoing project through 2016.

USAID selected TerraTherm's In-Pile Thermal Desorption (IPTD) technology for treatment of approximately 73,000 cubic meters of soil and sediment at Da Nang Airport .

The IPTD approach incorporates placing contaminated soil and sediment within an above-ground, covered and fully insulated treatment pile structure, and then heating each batch of soil over several months to destroy the dioxin.

Once implemented, the technology can safely and effectively treat the soil to the required Vietnamese cleanup levels, as has been demonstrated at similarly-sized projects in the US .

TerraTherm is working with Krüger/VWS-VN to implement the project.-VNA