🎉 30 Years VEGAS – For Clean Groundwater and Sustainable Remediation

September 30, 2025

VEGAS celebrates its 30th anniversary this month! Since 1995, VEGAS – the nationwide unique Research Facility for Subsurface Remediation at the University of Stuttgart – stands for excellent research, practice-oriented technology development, and successful knowledge transfer.

Our mission:
We develop solutions for contaminated site remediation, study the behavior of heat and contaminants in the subsurface, and advance practical, effective, and efficient technologies.

⚙️ What we do:
VEGAS is versatile: from numerical modeling to small-scale experiments, to large-scale, field-relevant tests of up to 850 m³ (!), and all the way to field demonstrations.
In close collaboration with project partners, authorities, municipalities, and industry, we transfer our findings into real-world remediation projects and promote targeted knowledge transfer through trainings and continuing education.

📈 What we have achieved:
30 years of research on contaminant behavior and remediation technologies – from small projects to major regional, national, European, and international initiatives with a broad network of partners.

  • Remediation technologies: Focus on in situ methods such as ISCO, steam-air injection, nZVI, surfactants, and thermal treatments – developed, improved, and piloted at VEGAS.
  • Heat and contaminant transport: Studies on mobility, sorption/elution, PAHs, PFAS, heavy metals, NAPLs, etc. – in the chemistry lab, technical lab, through computer models, and field experiments.
  • Scaling and transferability: From technical lab setups to large test containers and pilot projects, supported by numerical modeling for prediction and upscaling.
  • Monitoring & measurement techniques: Development of innovative methods for site investigation, on-site analytics, and monitoring networks before, during, and after remediation.

🙏 A big and heartfelt thank you goes to all former and current staff, the students, as well as our national and international project partners who have made VEGAS what it is today. We look forward to the next 30 years!

📣 Join in! Share your own experiences with VEGAS: In which projects have you been involved? Which milestones, people, or events are most memorable to you?

Contact

vegasinfo@iws.uni-stuttgart.de

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