Effect of Soil Type on Electrokinetic Removal of Phenanthrene Using Surfactants and Cosolvents
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 129, Issue 4
Abstract
Numerous sites have been contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and these sites pose a significant risk to public health and the environment because PAHs are often toxic, mutagenic, and/or carcinogenic. Furthermore, these sites are often difficult or costly to remediate because PAHs are hydrophobic and highly resistant to degradation. The in situ flushing process using surfactants and/or cosolvents has shown great promise for sites possessing uniform and high-permeability soils, but it is generally ineffective for sites containing heterogeneous and/or low-permeability soils. Thus, for difficult soil conditions, electrokinetics can be integrated with the in situ flushing process to improve soil-solution-contaminant interaction. This investigation was conducted to evaluate the effects of two different low-permeability soils, kaolin and glacial till, on electrokinetically enhanced flushing. Each soil type was used in three bench-scale electrokinetic experiments, where each test employed a different flushing solution, deionized water, a surfactant, or a cosolvent. The results indicated that the contaminant was more strongly bound to the glacial till than the kaolin, and this was attributed to its higher-organic content. The glacial till also generated a greater electrical current and electro-osmotic flow, and this was probably a result of its higher-carbonate content and more diverse mineralogy. Based on the contaminant mass remaining in the soil, it was apparent that the surfactant or cosolvent solution caused contaminant desorption, solubilization, and/or migration in both soils, but additional research is required to improve PAH removal efficiency.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Abdul, A. S., Gibson, T. L., Ang, C. C., Smith, J. C., and Sobczynski, R. E.(1992). “In-situ surfactant washing of polychlorinated biphenyls and oils from a contaminated site.” Ground Water, 30(2), 219–231.
Acar, Y. B., Gale, R. J., Alshawabkeh, A. N., Marks, R. E., Puppula, S., Bricka, M., and Parker, R.(1995). “Electrokinetic remediation: Basics and technology status.” J. Hazard. Mater., 40, 117–137.
Acar, Y. B., Li, H., and Gale, R. J.(1992). “Phenol removal from kaolinite by electrokinetics.” J. Geotech. Eng., 118(11), 1837–1852.
Adeel, Z., and Luthy, R. G. (1995). “Concentration-dependent regimes in sorption and transport of a nonionic surfactant in sand-aqueous systems.” Surfactant enhanced subsurface remediation—Emerging technologies, Chap. 4, D. A. Sabatini, R. C. Knox, and J. H. Harwell, eds., ACS Symposium Series 594, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 39–53.
Bruell, C. J., Segall, B. A., and Walsh, M. T.(1992). “Electroosomotic removal of gasoline hydrocarbons and TCE from clay.” J. Environ. Eng., 118(1), 68–83.
Casagrande, I. L.(1949). “Electro-osmosis in soils.” Geotechnique, 1(3), 159–177.
Chiou, T. C., McGroddy, S. E., and Kile, D. E.(1998). “Partitioning characteristics of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on soils and sediments.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 32(2), 264–269.
Clar, E. (1964). Polycyclic hydrocarbons, Academic, New York, 487.
Edwards, D. A., Adeel, Z., and Luthy, R. G.(1994). “Distribution of nonionic surfactant and phenanthrene in a sediment/aqueous system.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 28(8), 1550–1560.
Eykholt, G. R. (1992). “Driving and complicating features of the electrokinetic treatment of contaminated soils.” PhD dissertation, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Texas at Austin, Austin, Tex., 269.
Eykholt, G. R.(1997). “Development of pore pressures by nonuniform electroosmosis in clays.” J. Hazardous Mater., 55, 171–186.
Eykholt, G. R., and Daniel, D. E.(1994). “Impact of system chemistry on electroosmosis in contaminated soil.” J. Geotech. Eng., 120(5), 797–815.
Fu, J., and Luthy, R. G.(1986). “Effect of organic solvent on sorption of aromatic solutes onto soils.” J. Environ. Eng., 112(2), 346–367.
Ganeshalingam, S., Legge, R. L., and Anderson, W. A.(1994). “Surfactant-enhanced leaching of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from soil.” Trans. Inst. Chem. Eng., Part A, 72, 247–251.
Gillette, J. S., Luthy, R. G., Clemett, S. J., and Zare, R. N.(1999). “Direct observation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on geosorbents at the subparticle scale.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 33(8), 1185–1192.
Grimberg, S. J., Nagel, J., and Aitken, M. D.(1995). “Kinetics of phenanthrene dissolution into water in the presence of nonionic surfactants.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 29(6), 1480–1487.
Grundl, T., and Michalski, P.(1996). “Electroosmotically driven water flow in sediments.” Water Res., 30(4), 811–818.
Hamann, C. H., Hamnett, A., and Vielstich, W. (1998). Electrochemistry, Wiley-VCH, New York, 423.
Harvey, R. G. (1991). Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: Chemistry and carcinogenicity, Cambridge University Press, New York, 396.
Holtz, R. D., and Kovacs, W. D. (1981). An introduction to geotechnical engineering, Prentice Hall, Englewood-Cliffs, N.J., 733.
Johnston, C. T. (1996). “Sorption of organic compounds on clay minerals: A surface functional group approach.” CMS workshop lectures, Vol. 8, organic pollutants in the environment, B. Sahwney, ed., The Clay Mineral Society, Boulder, Colo. 2–44.
Joshi, M. M., and Lee, S.(1995). “A novel treatment train for remediation of PAH contaminated soils.” Fresenius Environ. Bull., 4(10), 617–623.
Ko, S., Schlautman, M. A., and Carraway, E. R.(1998a). “Partitioning of hydrophobic organic compounds to sorbed surfactants. I: Experimental studies.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 32(18), 2769–2775.
Ko, S., Schlautman, M. A., and Carraway, E. R.(1998b). “Effects of solution chemistry on the partitioning of phenanthrene to sorbed surfactants.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 32(22), 3542–3548.
Lambe, W. T., and Whitman, R. V. (1969). Soil mechanics, Wiley, New York, 553.
Laor, Y., Farmer, W. J., Aochi, Y., and Strom, P. F.(1998). “Phenanthrene binding and sorption to dissolved and mineral-associated humic acid.” Water Res., 32(6), 1923–1931.
Lee, D., Cody, R. D., and Hoyle, B. L.(2001). “Laboratory evaluation of the use of surfactants for ground water remediation and the potentialfor recycling them.” Ground Water Monit. Rem., 21(1), 49–57.
Li, A., Cheung, K. A., and Reddy, K. R.(2000). “Cosolvent-enhanced electrokinetic remediation of soils contaminated with phenanthrene.” J. Environ. Eng., 126(6), 527–533.
Means, J. C., Wood, S. G., Hassett, J. J., and Banwart, W. L.(1980). “Sorption of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons by sediments and soils.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 14(12), 1524–1531.
Mitchell, J. K. (1993). Fundamentals of soil behavior, Wiley, New York, 437.
Pamukcu, S. (1994). “Electrokinetic removal of coal tar constituents from contaminated soils.” Final Rep., EPRI TR-103320, Project 2879-21, Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, Calif.
Patterson, I. F., Chowdhry, B. Z., and Leharne, S. A.(1999). “Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon extraction from a coal tar-contaminated soil using aqueous solutions of nonionic surfactants.” Chemosphere, 38(13), 3095–3017.
Pennell, K. D., Abriola, L. M., and Weber, Jr., W. J.(1993). “Surfactant-enhanced solubilization of residual dodecane in soil columns. I: Experimental investigation.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 27(12), 2332–2340.
Pinto, L. J., and Moore, M. M.(2000). “Release of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from contaminated soils by surfactant and remediation of this effluent by penicillium spp.” Exp. Toxicol. Chem., 19(7), 1741–1748.
Reddy, K. R., and Parupudi, U. S.(1997). “Removal of chromium, nickel, and cadmium from clays by in-situ electrokinetic remediation.” J. Soil Contamination, 6(4), 391–407.
Reddy, K. R., Parupudi, U. S., Devulapalli, S. N., and Xu, C. Y.(1997). “Effects of soil composition on removal of chromium by electrokinetics.” J. Hazardous Mater., 55(1–3), 135–158.
Reddy, K. R., and Saichek, R. E. (2002) “Electrokinetic removal of phenanthrene from kaolin using different surfactants and cosolvents.” Evaluation and remediation of low permeability and dual porosity environments, M. N. Sara and L. G. Everett, eds., ASTM STP 1415, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, Pa., 138–161.
Reddy, K. R., and Shirani, A. B.(1997). “Electrokinetic remediation of metal contaminated glacial tills.” Geotech. Geologic. Eng., 15(1), 3–29.
Roote, D. S. (1997). “In-situ flushing.” Technology Overview Rep. No. TO-97-02, Ground-Water Remediation Technologies Analysis Center, Pittsburgh.
Rosen, M. J. (1989). Surfactants and interfacial phenomena, 2nd Ed., Wiley, New York, 431.
Saichek, R. E. (2002). “Electrokinetically enhanced in-situ flushing for HOC-contaminated soils.” PhD thesis, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, 415.
Schultz, D. S.(1997). “Electroosmosis technology for soil remediation: laboratory results, field trial, and economic modeling.” J. Hazardous Mater., 55, 81–91.
Schwarzenbach, R. P., Gschwend, P. M., and Imboden, D. M. (1993). Environmental organic chemistry, Wiley, New York, 681.
Shapiro, A. P., and Probstein, R. F.(1993). “Removal of contaminants from saturated clay by electroosmosis.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 27(2), 283–291.
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) (2000). “A resource for MGP site characterization and remediation.” EPA/542-R-00-005, Washington, D.C.
USEPA. (1986). Test methods for evaluating solid waste, Vol. 1A: Laboratory manual, physical/chemical methods, SW-846, 3rd Ed., Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Washington, D.C.
Vane, L. M., and Zang, G. M.(1997). “Effect of aqueous phase properties on clay particle zeta potential and electro-osmotic permeability: Implications for electro-kinetic soil remediation processes.” J. Hazardous Mater., 55, 1–22.
Yoem, I. T., Ghosh, M. M., and Cox, C. D.(1996). “Kinetic aspects of surfactant solubilization of soil-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 30(5), 1589–1595.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 28, 2002
Accepted: Jun 21, 2002
Published online: Mar 14, 2003
Published in print: Apr 2003
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.