Feasibility of remediation of diesel contaminated soils using surfactants by use of experimental pilot

Subject Areas : environmental management

Ehsan Salehian ¹ , Ahmad Khodadadi ² , Hossein Gangidoust ³

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Received: 2008-09-17 Accepted : 2008-12-09 Published : 2012-04-02

Keywords: PH, soil remediation, anionic surfactant, remediation efficiency, permeability,

Abstract :

Nowadays soil contamination by oil production due to leakage of fuel storage and transition hazards is an important environmental problem. Due to the additional hazard of transition to the human food chain, there is the possibility for pollution of ground water. Therefore in situ remediation of oil contaminated soil is very important. In this investigation the effective parameters on diesel soil remediation by soil washing using SDS surfactant were investigated. For modeling of contaminated land remediation the contaminated soil columns was used. Soil columns were contaminated with diesel in amount of 10000 ppm and 20000 ppm. In this study the effect of pH, surfactant concentration in washing solution and initial contamination amount were investigated. Results showed that in all states the quantity of remediation for acidic states is very low and efficiency of remediation when using only water is (1:3) of maximum amount. For soil with initial contamination amount of 10000 ppm the maximum efficiency is for surfactant in concentration of 0.3 and pH=11 and for soil with initial contamination amount of 20000 ppm the maximum efficiency is for surfactant in concentration of 0.1 and pH=11. By increasing the amount of surfactant concentration the permeability of soil decrease and in pH=11 the amount of permeability is maximum. With increasing initial contamination quantity, the velocity of increasing of remediation and permeability decreased. Consequently in the low level of contamination the effect of washing solution pH in soil remediation is greater in comparison with high levels of contamination.