Patrick Brady RG

Geologist Patrick Brady, president and owner of Sisters, ore-based Brady Environmental, developed an evaporative desorption thermal soil treatment system using hot air instead of an open flame â€" the traditional model â€" relying on high-quality Leister heaters to evaporate soil moisture and contaminants.

The expensive, traditional method of soil treatment uses an open flame to boil off the water, which creates contaminates that must first be cleaned before being released into the air. Plus, the operation, maintenance and fuel costs associated with open-flame technology greatly inflate the price of the cleaning process.

Trust in Leister

During the research and design stages for the evaporative desorption thermal soil treatment system, Brady stumbled upon Assembly Supplies, a distributor of Leister Process Technologies hot-air tools, such as heaters, blowers and controllers, among others. He soon chose to use Leister tools in his innovative system.

"After meeting with Dennis Van Grol (owner of Assembly Supplies) and seeing other applications where the Leister tool was used, I felt very comfortable with it," said Brady.
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By monitoring the system to ensure the temperature hovers around 1,000°F, Brady can guarantee the air never reaches the oxidation temperature of 1,300°F, which produces emissions.

"Leister heaters are an integral tool in our patented process and it doesn't produce the pollution that other systems produce doing the same thing," said Brady.

A significant cost saving

In 2001, Brady and his twin brother, John, filed a patent application for the evaporative desorption thermal soil treatment system. The US patent was issued in December 2004. This soil oven is a modular design in an airflow system. Vapors are extracted and the contaminants they contain are destroyed before being released into the air.

"Others can go in and it costs them $250 to $600 a ton to clean the remote Arctic site, but I can clean the soil for $50 or $150 a ton," said Brady. "My machine is much more portable, so I can fly it to a particular spot for $150,000, whereas the old technology would cost $1.5 million to get it there by barge or truck."

Results driven

As a result of the evaporative desorption thermal soil treatment system, Brady was able to cut down his labor pool by a third. "That dramatically cuts down my cost," he says. But to Brady, it's not only about the money he saves; it's about the communities he revives.

"The secondary effect this system has is it stimulates the local economy and produces hundreds of jobs in these areas. It makes for a better community… it takes the smell away," says Brady.