An investigation into the efficiency of electrokinetic and electrokinetic coupled with calcium peroxide permeable reactive barriers techniques for soil remediation using a statistical analysis

The current study emphasizes on the applicability of combining the electrokinetic (EK) and permeable reactive barriers (PRB) techniques compared to the simple EK technique. For this purpose, a statistical analysis is conducted using the Fractional Factorial Design statistical method. Also, General Linear Model and Two-sample T-Test analyzes are considered to clarify which type of soil remediation technique represents the highest efficiency. Calcium peroxide, an affordable material with easy capability for cultivation, is utilized in the PRB process to eliminate the soil from diesel contamination. The experiments were performed for 3 days and 10 days, according to which the initial contamination rates of 10 and 20% were selected, and the applied voltages were 20 V and 30 V. Using the innovative remediation technique, the experiments were conducted for 10 days with 20% initial pollution content and the applied voltage of 30 V, the initial gasoil content was about 190.5 mg/g, and after applying the proposed technique, the average final pollution content throughout soil reached approximately 37 mg/g. This experiment was also conducted for the approximately initial gasoil content of 185, 206, and 191 mg/g, which led to the removal efficiency of 79.59%, 78.93%, and 79.15%, respectively. The main novelty of this paper is attributed to the use of calcium peroxide in the EK-PRB technique and the statistical analysis conducted in this study that indicates the remarkable efficiency of the proposed approach. It was also revealed that the efficiency of the proposed technique is on par with the other state-of-art ones presented in the literature and even sometimes outperforms them.

Automated summary

This study focuses on the applicability of combining the electrokinetic and permeable reactive barriers techniques, and demonstrates their high efficiency and advantages compared to other techniques through experiments and statistical analysis.