Remediation of inorganic contaminants in soil using electrokinetics, phytoremediation techniques

Abstract

During the last decade, the expansion of urbanization and industrial activities caused serious environmental problems such as soil pollution. Currently, the vast majority of remediation projects involve disposing of contaminated soil in a landfill. With the introduction of this, cause increased landfill tax and becoming less desirable, and so robust. Novel technologies are required to remediate soil contamination with toxic contaminants, including heavy metals and organic pollutants. Electrokinetic (EK) and Phytoremediation are better techniques. Electrokinetic is an emerging remediation technology for mixed contaminants, especially in low hydraulic conductivity soils. During the electrokinetic remediation process, an electric field is applied to the specimen to remove the contaminants from soil by means of electro-osmotic (EO), electromigration (EM), and electrophoresis (EP) processes. This paper addresses the problem of contaminants in soil and has investigated the use of electrokinetic phenomena and phytoremediation as tools to bring about an increase in this factor, leading to improved degradation. Electrokinetic separation is an emerging technology that relies on the application of a low-density, the direct current through the soil to separate and extract the heavy metal. When comparing these two techniques a significant increase in the effectiveness of the remediation was noted with electrokinetics technique, with substantially faster degradation to occur.