Removal of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons from Contaminated Soil through Microwave Irradiation

Kanghee Cho, Eunji Myung, Hyunsoo Kim, Oyunbileg Purev, Cheonyoung Park and Nagchoul Choi
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Kanghee Cho: Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Eunji Myung: Department of Energy and Resource Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Korea
Hyunsoo Kim: Department of Energy and Resource Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Korea
Oyunbileg Purev: Department of Energy and Resource Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Korea
Cheonyoung Park: Department of Energy and Resource Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju 61452, Korea
Nagchoul Choi: Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 16, 1-13

Abstract: In this study, we investigated the removal mechanism of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) from soil by microwave heating. TPH contaminated soil was investigated to determine the desorption behavior of five carbon number-based fractions of TPH. The applied operating microwave power density influenced the final temperature that was reached during heating. For low operating power density applications, microwave effectiveness was limited due to the soil’s dielectric properties, which exhibited a direct relationship with temperature variation. Soil particle distribution could be attributed to permeability, which significantly influenced the evaporation of contaminated soil during the microwave treatment. The results indicate that the activation energy was correlated with the influence of particle size. The removal efficiency of the coarse soil reached 91.1% at 15 min, whereas that of fine soil was low. A total of 30 min had passed, and a removal efficiency of 71.2% was found for the fine soil. Residual TPH concentration was decreased when irradiation time was increased with a removal rate dependent on soil temperature variation. The surface functional groups of the contaminated soil were influenced by microwave irradiation, and changes in the hydrocarbon fraction affected contaminant removal.

Keywords: microwave; total petroleum hydrocarbons; vapor stripping; particle size; power density (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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