General Motors donated five patents to MSU on Friday to assist in developing fast-paced technologies for the removal of contaminated soil.

The patented technologies will allow contaminated soil to be cleaned without excavating it or transporting it from a site and will greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to clean a site, GM spokeswoman Susan Garavaglia said.

"MSU has a wonderful civil engineering department, and because of the work they have done in this area, it was reviewed as the best recipient to further this technology," Garavaglia said. "In the case of the bioremediation, we want to provide it to the university to develop so it could be used for commercial application.

"That would be up to the university to explore."

In the past, GM has used the patented technologies to clean three locations, she said.

Michael Dybas, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, said the patents will be beneficial to MSU.

"Researchers such as myself, who work on bioremediation, can use devices like this in support of our research activities," he said.

Bioremediation is a process that uses biological organisms to remove contaminants from an area.

Dybas also said researching the technologies at MSU can have a broad impact outside the university, because they can be transferred to use in the bioremediation sector to clean up contaminated pollution sites.

Dybas said research related to the patented technologies is funded by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and is already underway in the department. A direct implementation of the donated patents, however, would not begin until the university evaluates the patents and creates a research proposal, he said.

Tom Gibson, a research scientist at GM in Warren, Mich., said, in example of some of the technologies, that oxygen gas can dispersed underground into the groundwater. It then dissolves in groundwater and promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria.

"These microorganisms biodegrade contaminants such as fuel from leaking underground storage tanks," Gibson said. "The natural biological processes that clean up the soil and groundwater are able to go ahead and remove the contaminants in a much shorter time than it could be done by excavation or pumping them out."