Remediation of Contaminated Soil with Petroleum Industrial Wastewater

Abstract

The contamination of soil with the wastes of oil industry products that are complex mixtures of hydrocarbons increased recently due to the large development of oil industries in Iraq. This study deals with the remediation of low permeability contaminated clayey soil by using the enhanced electrokinetic technique (EK). The contaminated soil samples obtained from Thi-Qar oil refinery plant in Al-Nassyriah city, where the byproducts of refinery plant are disposed into that site. The byproduct contaminant treated as total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) to avoid dealing and complexity of treating the individual minerals and compounds consisting the contaminant. The initial concentrations of TPH were (702.7, 1168, 1235) ppm in the contaminated soil samples NA10, NA11, and NA12 respectively. The remediation technique includes a bench-scale experimental study by applying the enhanced electrokinetic test on the soil sample NA12 that contains the higher concentration of TPH in compared with other soil samples. A constant DC voltage gradient of 1.0 VDC/cm was applied for a period of 10 days. This echnology was enhanced by using flushing solution of ethanol and deionized water, which was mixed in ratios of 30% and 70% respectively. The results of this study showed that the removal of TPH at the anode was about 15% and the concentration of TPH decreased at anode, which reflect the migration of TPH towards the cathode.