Washing out heavy metals from contaminated soils from an iron and steel smelting site

Abstract

Washing is a promising method for separating contaminants bound to the particles of soil ex-situ by chemical mobilization. Laboratory batch washing experiments were conducted using deionized water and varying concentrations of oxalic acid, citric acid, tartaric acid, acetic acid, hydrochloric acid and ethylenediaminetetra acetic acid (EDTA) to assess the efficiency of using these chemicals as washing agents and to clean up heavy metals from two heavily polluted soils from an iron and streel smelting site. The toxicity reduction index and remediation costs were analyzed, and the results showed that the soils were polluted with Cd, Pb and Zn. Hydrochloric acid and EDTA were more efficient than the other washing agents in the remediation of the test soils. The maximum total toxicity reduction index showed that 0.5 mol·L^-1 hydrochloric acid could achieve the remediation with the lowest costs.

Keywords

heavy metals / soil washing / toxicity reduction index / iron and steel smelting site

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2014CB238906) the “One Hundred Talents” project of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2013AA06A211-2).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg