Webinar Description
Dr Malek Bouazza will discuss PFAS and geosynthetic liners: Current status and the way forward. in this webinar.
The presentation will give an overview of the current state of the practice on geosynthetic liners- poly and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) interaction. It will highlight the importance of knowing the PFAS chemistry and the need to make a clear distinction between on-site repositories and landfill applications, as the liners will be subjected to hugely different concentration loadings and dominating PFASs. Consequently, the selection of geosynthetic liner components needs to account for these differences and distinguish between the expected exposure conditions. Fate and migration of PFASs in geomembranes and GCLs will be discussed with the presentation of some early results on GCLs and further discussion on geomembranes.
About the Speaker
Dr Malek Bouazza – Monash University
Dr A (Malek) Bouazza is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Monash University. He is a Visiting Distinguished Professor at Zhejiang University, China. He has also held a number of visiting scholar positions at Cardiff University, U.K., University of Missouri-Columbia, USA, Arizona State University, USA, University of Malaysia-Pahang, Malaysia and Queen’s University, Canada.
His skills and experience in the area geosynthetics and environmental geotechnics are well recognized in Australia and abroad. In addition to his academic commitments, Dr Bouazza gives specialist advice for the industry both nationally and internationally. His work has included peer review of design for more than 30 municipal solid waste and hazardous landfills and tailings storage facilities in Australia, Thailand, Peru and other countries. He has led and co-wrote the key liner components of new landfill standard (Best Practice Environmental Management: Siting, design, operation and rehabilitation of landfills, EPA Publication 788) for the State of Victoria, Australia which is now used as a model for much of the country. Dr Bouazza has been a key advisor to EPA Victoria on landfill design and operation and has been appointed in 2015 to the EPA Victoria independent landfill expert panel to provide peer review advice on complex landfill proposals to improve the efficiency and certainty associated with landfills approval process. He has performed, in this capacity, peer review of the lining design of most of the major landfills in Victoria. He has provided expert advice on numerous challenging projects ranging from the long-term performance of landfill liners for municipal solid waste and hazardous waste in Australia and in Antarctica; shale gas migration through liners in the USA, Cut off walls to mitigate mercury vapour intrusion in Australia, lining for coal seam gas facilities in Australia and liners for mining applications in Peru, South Africa, and Australia.