Sonochemical treatment of simulated soil contaminated with diesel.pdf

Advances in Environmental Research 4Ž. 2000 103᎐112
Sonochemical treatment of simulated soil contaminated
with diesel
D. Feng, C. AldrichU
Department of Chemical Engineering, Uni¨ersity of Stellen***, Pri¨ate Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa
Accepted 23 February 2000
Abstract
Sonochemical treatment has previously been shown to be an effective method to remediate soils contaminated
with hydrocarbons. Ultrasonically induced desorption of the contaminants is based on the mechanisms of physical
breakage of bonds by hot spots, quartz particle surface impingement, the fragmentation of long-chain hydrocarbons
by microjets, as well as microstreaming generated by acoustic vortices in the media pores. In this investigation the
effect of factors such as: slurry concentration; ultrasonic power intensity; duration of irradiation; particle size; diesel
content; slurry pH; salinity; and surfactant concentrations on the desorption of diesel from quartz, is considered. A
multistage sonochemical treatment process for the remediation of sand contaminated with diesel is consequently
proposed and it is shown that this approach is more effective than high-speed mechanical agitation. ᮊ 2000 Elsevier
Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Sonochemistry; Diesel; Sand; Remediation
1. Introduction 1985; Fall and Pickens, 1988; Baehr et al., 1989; Katsu-
mata, 1992. wer