Laboratory treatability testing of soils contaminated with lead and PCBs using particle-size separation and soil washing

Abstract

A soil treatability study was conducted using particle-size separation and soil washing to reduce the volume of material contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and lead at a Superfund site. Soil washing using surfactant was effective at removing 95% of PCBs into fine material and residual wash water. Results indicate that almost 80% of the material contaminated with up to 140 mg/kg PCBs could be treated to concentrations below 10 mg/kg using soil washing with surfactant. There did not appear to be a difference in lead removal using either particle size separation or soil washing, although the lead data have high uncertainty because of soil heterogeneity. Lead concentrations in soil were reduced from as high as 1700 to ≤150 mg/kg and from 560 to ≤220 mg/kg in about half of the material using particle size separation.