Effect of Soil Washing Solutions on Simultaneous Removal of Heavy Metals and Arsenic from Contaminated Soil

Kanghee Cho, Eunji Myung, Hyunsoo Kim, Cheonyoung Park, Nagchoul Choi and Cheol Park
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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
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
Cheol Park: Construction Technology Research Center, Korea Conformity Laboratories, Seoul 08503, Korea

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: In this study, we investigated the feasibility of using a solution of sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid as an extraction method for soil-washing to remove Cu, Pb, Zn, and As from contaminated soil. We treated various soil particles, including seven fraction sizes, using sulfuric acid. In addition, to improve Cu, Pb, Zn, and As removal efficiencies, washing agents were compared through batch experiments. The results showed that each agent behaved differently when reacting with heavy metals (Cu, Pb, and Zn) and As. Sulfuric acid was more effective in extracting heavy metals than in extracting As. However, phosphoric acid was not effective in extracting heavy metals. Compared with each inorganic acid, As removal from soil by washing agents increased in the order of sulfuric acid (35.81%) < phosphoric acid (62.96%). Therefore, an enhanced mixture solution using sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid to simultaneously remove heavy metals and As from contaminated soils was investigated. Sulfuric acid at 0.6 M was adopted to combine with 0.6 M phosphoric acid to obtain the mixture solution (1:1) that was used to determine the effect for the simultaneous removal of both heavy metals and As from the contaminated soil. The removal efficiencies of As, Cu, Pb, and Zn were 70.5%, 79.6%, 80.1%, and 71.2%, respectively. The combination of sulfuric acid with phosphoric acid increased the overall As and heavy metal extraction efficiencies from the contaminated soil samples. With the combined effect of dissolving oxides and ion exchange under combined washings, the removal efficiencies of heavy metals and As were higher than those of single washings.

Keywords: mixture solution; sulfuric acid; phosphoric acid; simultaneous removal; heavy metals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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