Application of nonionic surfactant-enhanced in situ flushing to a diesel contaminated site.

Surfactant-enhanced in situ flushing was performed to remediate soil and groundwater at a diesel contaminated area, which had been used as a military vehicle repair area in Korea for 45 years. A pilot-scale site (4 m x 4 m x 4 m) was selected within the contaminated area for in situ flushing; the selected site was composed of heterogeneous sandy and silt-sandy soils, with an average hydraulic conductivity (K) of 2.0 x 10(-4)cm/s. Two percent of sorbitan monooleate (POE 20) was mixed with uncontaminated groundwater and five pore volumes of solution (three pore volumes of surfactant solution and two pore volumes of groundwater alone) were flushed to remove diesel from the site. The effluent TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbon) concentration with surfactant solution flushing increased to 1761 mg/L, which was over 200 times higher than the average concentration with only groundwater flushing. A total of 48 kg of TPH (about 88% of the initial TPH) was removed from the pilot site with five pore volumes of 2% sorbitan monooleate solution flushing; this total was more than 75 times the amount that was removed when flushing with water alone (less than 640 g). All of the extracted solution was treated by means of a chemical treatment process, which included the use of a dissolved air flotation system to lower the concentration of solution below 5mg/L and the treated solution was then disposed of in a nearby sewage drain.

Soil washing of As-contaminated stream sediments in the vicinity of an abandoned mine in Korea.

A soil washing process was applied to remediate arsenic (As)-contaminated stream sediments around an abandoned mine in Goro, Korea. Laboratory scale soil washing experiments for As-contaminated stream sediments were performed under various washing conditions in order to maximize As removal efficiency. Stream sediments were taken from two sites (S1 and S5) along the main stream connected to an abandoned mine. Stream sediments at the two sites were divided into two groups (>or=0.35 and <0.35 mm in diameter), giving four types of sediments, which were thereupon used for soil washing experiments. The results of soil washing experiments involving various pH conditions suggested that As removal efficiency is very high in both strongly acidic and basic solutions (pH 1 and 13), regardless of sediment type. Removal efficiencies for fine sediments from S1 and S5 were >95% after 1 h of washing with 0.2 M citric acid (C(6)H(8)O(7)). When using 0.2 M citric acid mixed with 0.1 M potassium phosphate (KH(2)PO(4)), the As removal efficiency increased to 100%. When recycled washing solution was applied, As removal efficiency was maintained at a level greater than 70%, even after eight recycling events. This suggests that the recycling of washing solution could be successfully applied as a means of decreasing the cost of the washing process. Results from the experiments suggest that soil washing is a potentially useful process for the remediation of As-contaminated stream sediments around abandoned mines.