PHENANTHRENE REMOVAL FROM SOIL SLURRIES WITH SURFACTANT-TREATED OXIDES

A soil-slurry washing technique to decontaminate soils containing low-solubility nonionic organic pollutants was investigated, using phenanthrene as a model pollutant. The technique is based on first transferring the sorbed phenanthrene from the soil to anionic surfactant-coated oxide particles, and then separating these anionic surfactant-coated oxide particles with the sorbed phenanthrene from the soil slurry via a. magnetic separation technique. The decontamination of two soils with different particle sizes and soil organic matter content was investigated. The proposed soil-slurry washing technique was effective in removing a strongly sorbing nonionic organic contaminant from soil slurries. Various operational scenarios of multistage soil-slurry reactors were evaluated with a mathematical model.