Sonochemical treatment of simulated soil contaminated with diesel

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. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.