Enhanced-Electrokinetic Remediation of Phenanthrene from a Silty Loam Soil

Electrokinetic remediation is an effective technique for remediation of soils contaminated by hydrophobic organic contaminants(HOCs). However it’s difficult to remediate pollutants from clay soils with high levels of cation exchange capacity. In this study we used a nonionic surfactant, Tween80(1%), as the purging solution in electrokinetic, for removal of phenanthrene in a silty loam soil with high buffering capacity. Four experiments were investigated for evaluating the effects of time, Voltage and pH control to enhance electrokinetic efficiency. Results showed that time increment induced higher removal efficiency (28%). Controlling the pH of anloyte(8.5) and the catholyte(4.5) was not effective enough to enhance the removal efficiency. In addition, increasing the voltage, augmented the transportation of phenanthrene from anode to cathode, however the electro-osmotic flow decreased

Keywords:

remediation , electrokinetic , phenenthrene , soil , surfactant