Non-thermal plasma technology for organic contaminated soil remediation: A review

There is an increasing focus around the world on soil contamination by organic compounds due to its harmful effect on human health. Significant efforts have been devoted to the remediation of soil contaminated by organics, leading to the development of various remediation Strategies, such as physical remediation, bioremediation, and chemical remediation. Recently, an attractive advanced oxidation process (AOP), non-thermal plasma technology, has drawn increasing attention for the remediation of organic contaminated soil due to the low energy consumption, rapid start-up and shutdown of the process, as well as a low requirement for the pretreatment pfocess of soil, etc. In this work, the current situation of soil contamination by organic pollutants and the existing soil remediation methods were introduced. The research progresses of various non-thermal plasmas for organic contaminated soil remediation were presented, such as dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), pulsed corona plasma, and non-thermal gliding arc fluidized bed. The effects of different parameters (e.g., applied voltage, soil properties, type and feed flow rate of the carrier gas, as well as the reactor configuration) on the remediation performance of non thermal plasmas were discussed. In addition, the possible degradation mechanisms of organic pollutants by non-thermal plasmas were analyzed. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.