INTEGRATION OF TECHNOLOGIES FOR TREATING SOIL CONTAMINATED WITH ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
Integration of technologies, soil remediation, organic contaminants
Soil is a recipient of accumulated contamination from industrial, agricultural, urban and maritime activities, so its remediation is crucial for a healthy environment. Thus, there is a need to use effective techniques to remedy contaminated soils, and one of the current challenges is the development of low-cost, efficient and ecologically favorable strategies for the recovery of soil environmental quality. Thus, this work proposed the integration of soil remediation techniques using treatments such as soil washing, permeable reactive barriers and electrochemical oxidation in order to treat soils contaminated with organic compounds. By integrating soil washing with an electrochemically generated persulfate solution aimed at treating soil contaminated with methyl orange (MO), the results indicated that MO was efficiently removed from the soil when a persulfate solution was used in the soil washing procedure. The oxidizing power of persulfate played a key role in eliminating MO from soil and aqueous solutions, preventing the generation of a highly polluted effluent. By integrating soil washing with cork permeable reactive barriers (PRB) in the treatment of soil contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), it was observed that the final washing solutions free of PAHs were obtained. However, the non-polar solvent was partially sorbed onto the cork granules, competing with the PAHs for the cork surface. On the other hand, the solvent content was beneficial for soil washing, improving the elution of PAHs from the soil.