Elimination of zinc from the contaminated soils by electro-kinetic remediation

Abstract EN

An electro-kinetic technique was usedin this study for removing of zinc from Iraqi contaminated soil was brought from area close to the Al-Doura refinery plant (silt loam soil).

Many experiments were constructed with different electrode purging solutions of tap water at pHof 4.5, 5.5 and 6.5.

Chemical anionic surfactant (SDS, sodium dodecyl sulfate) for washing soil and as enhancing conditioner wasalso used.Used tea leaves (UTL) was used as a low cost adsorbent material to prevent reverse osmosis flow, which may affect the removal efficiency.The results showed that the removal efficiency increases with decreasing pH of the purging solution.

It was noticed from the first three experiments (using purging solutions with pH of 4.5, 5.5 and 6.5), the best removal efficiency was at pH of 4.5 (64.37%).

This because when the pH increases, the tendency for metal ions to become adsorbed onto the soil particles also increases.

The removal efficiency was increased when (10-1M) SDS was used as enhancing conditioner (71.87%).The use ofSDS as washing solution has increased both zinc dissolution and desorption from the soil surface and hence the efficiency of electro-kinetic remediation was also increased.

This study proved that the (UTL) is a good adsorbent material to prevent the reverse electro-osmotic flow, and hence it could be considered economically and beneficially as a good adsorbent medium