Effect of surfactant concentration and washing pH on remediation of diesel

contaminated soils that caused by road transportation:

(Column study)
Ehsan Salehian
M.Sc student of civil-environmental engineering, Tarbiat Modares University
Tehran-Iran
E-mail: ehsan_salehian@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
Road transportation in many ways, by polluting air, water and soil, affected the environment. There
are many studies that have been investigated the effects of road transportation on air and ground
water, but studies on soil contamination that arising from different transportation activities, was not
investigated lot. It is evident that road transportation was related to soil pollution. Many
environmentally hazardous substances are used for the maintenance of the transport infrastructure and
means of transportation. In vulnerable areas these substances can accumulate in the soil or ground
water in hazardous amounts if they are used in large quantities. Land may be contaminated due to the
scene of an accident. This contamination may be due to spillage of the payload or spillage of vehicle
fuel. In general the fuel risk is likely to be greatest at the depot where many small spillages of fuel,
lubricants, solvents etc. may accumulate over a period of time to present a contamination problem.
One of the most important pollution that comes from road transportation is fuel contaminations that
have been polluted most of the sites near the roads. Soil washing is one of the methods that used for
petroleum contaminated soil and is down in a both in-situ and ex-situ manners. Because of the
problems that are corresponding to ex-situ remediation, investigation on in-situ method to remediate
contaminated soils is necessary. The aim of this study is to investigate on the remediation of diesel
contaminated soil to find the best condition for soil remediation. Diesel contaminated soils is known
as one of the most environmental problems due to the low rate of its degradation. Surfactant can
enhance soil washing to remediate diesel contaminated soils. in this study remediation of diesel
contaminated soil in the column with 15 cm high and 4 m diameter was investigated. Soil column was
contaminated with diesel in amount of 10000 and 20000 ppm. After 72 hour, washing of soil with
SDS with concentration of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 was started. For investigation the effect of pH of the
washing solution, all tests were repeated with 4, 7, 9 and 11 pH. Also for study the effect of
surfactant on soil remediation soil was washed with water without surfactant. All tests were continued
up to 10 pore volume and the trend of remediation and permeability of soil during the test were
investigated. Results indicated that in all states the quantity of remediation for acidic states is very low
and efficiency of remediation when using only water is about (1:3) of maximum amount. For soil with
initial contamination amount of 10000 ppm the maximum efficiency is for surfactant in the
concentration of 0.3 and pH level of 11 and for the soil with initial contamination of 20000 ppm the
maximum efficiency is for surfactant in the concentration of 0.1 and pH of 11. It was also noted the
increase of surfactant resulted the decrease of remediation. By increasing the amount of surfactant
concentration the permeability of soil decreases. In this case the maximum permeability was attained
at pH level of 11. With increasing initial contamination, the rate of increasing remediation and
permeability were reduced. Consequently in the low level of contamination the effect of washing
solution pH in soil remediation and permeability is more effective in comparing with high level of
contamination.

Keywords: Road transportation, soil pollution, diesel, soil remediation, surfactant, washing pH, soil
permeability.