Abstract
In recent years, surfactants have been used to clean up soils and aquifers contaminated by petroleum and petroleum derivatives. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate nanoemulsions for remediation of soil contaminated by petroleum, by using a commercial solvent Solbrax. The nanoemulsions were prepared by the phase inversion temperature (PIT) method, using oil phase Solbrax (a solvent extracted from naphtha with low aromatics content) and a nonionic ethoxylated lauryl ether surfactant. The surfactant concentrations were varied from 10 to 12 wt% and the oil phase was varied from 5 to 20 wt%. A 23 factorial experimental design with center point run was used to evaluate the soil washing process, varying time, temperature, and shear rate of the system. The results show that the most efficient system (with 90% efficiency) was that using the nanoemulsion containing 5 wt% of Solbrax and 12 wt% of surfactant after four hours of washing, on 240 rotation·min−1 of shear rate and at a temperature of 318 K.
Highlights
Contamination of the soil, water, and air has increased greatly in recent years
The cloud point of aqueous solutions of nonionic surfactants is observed by increasing the temperature to the point where the ethylene oxide molecules become dehydrated and the surfactant separates out of the aqueous solution
The phase inversion process caused by the variation in temperature (PIT), a known method to produce stable nanoemulsions, proved to be an effective method to produce stable nanoemulsions from Solbrax/water, in the presence of the nonionic ethoxylated lauryl ether surfactant (Ultrol L70), containing seven ethylene oxide units
Summary
Contamination of the soil, water, and air has increased greatly in recent years. One of the main contributors is the petroleum industry, which causes contamination through release of various organic compounds along its productive chain. Among the contamination sources are fuel leaks during transport and spills caused by traffic accidents [1, 2]. Various chemical and physical treatment processes have been developed and tested to remove hydrocarbons from the soil. The processes used to contain spills on land vary according to the quantity and type of oil or derivative and soil. The less viscous the oil is and the more porous the soil is, the faster the spill will spread [3,4,5]
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