Abstract
Abstract Natural surfactant solutions obtained from the fruit pericarps of Sapindus mukorossi , commonly known as Ritha or soapnut, are tested for their ability to remove hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) from soil. Colloidal gas aphron (CGA) suspensions generated using the surfactant are used in this study to flush an HOC from a representative soil. Soil is spiked with a chlorinated hydrocarbon, hexachlorobenzene (HCB), serving as a model HOC representative of contamination at a Superfund site north of Baton Rouge, LA. The recovery of HCB from soil columns using CGA suspensions was considerably larger than that for a waterflood. HCB recoveries in the effluent reached a maximum by the fifth pore volume and remained fairly constant for soils contaminated with high levels of HCB. This maximum HCB concentration in the column effluent was proportional to HCB solubility in the corresponding surfactant solutions. Natural surfactant performed marginally better in the form of conventional solutions than CGA suspensions at similar concentration in recovering HCB. HCB removal increased with increasing surfactant concentration due to increased aqueous solubility. The pressure buildup across the soil column remained fairly low when natural surfactant was used at concentrations up to 1%. Alternating the flushing media between CGA and water neither enhanced the recovery of HCB nor changed the pressure buildup across the soil column.
Published Version
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