Ex situ diesel contaminated soil washing with mechanical methods

Soil washing is a dynamic, physical process that cleans contaminated soil t hrough transfer of the contaminant into a liquid stream. Three mechanical w ashing methods, i.e. jet reactor, attrition and ultrasonic washing were eva luated on a laboratory scale. The operating parameters for each washing pro cess were investigated in detail and mechanisms are proposed for the observ ed effects. In a techno-economic comparison of the three methods, the jet r eactor performed best, followed by ultrasonic and attrition washing. Experi mental results suggested that a combination of the three washing techniques could yield residual diesel levels of less than 1000 mg/l for sand particl es with an approximate size of 0.1 mm and an initial diesel content of 5%. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.