Removal of As, Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn from a highly contaminated industrial soil using surfactant enhanced soil washing

Surfactant enhanced soil washing (SESW) was applied to an industrial contaminated soil. A preliminary characterization of the soil regarding the alkaline-earth metals, Na, K, Ca and Mg took values of 2866, 2036, 2783 and 4149 mg/kg. The heavy metals As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni and Zn, had values of 4019, 14, 35582, 70, 2603, and 261 mg/kg, respectively. When using different surfactants, high removal of Cu, Ni and Zn were found, and medium removals for Pb, As and Cd. In the case of these three metals, tap water removed more than the surfactant solutions, except for the case of As.There were surfactants with average removals (this is, the removal for all the metals studied) of 67.1% (Tween 80), 64.9% (Surfacpol 14104) and 61.2% (Emulgin W600). There were exceptional removals using Texapon N-40 (83.2%, 82.8% and 86.6% for Cu, Ni and Zn), Tween 80 (85.9, 85.4 and 81.5 for Cd, Zn and Cu), Polafix CAPB (79%, 83.2% and 49.7% for Ni, Zn and As). The worst results were obtained with POLAFIX LO with a global removal of 45%, well below of the average removal with tap water (50.2%).All removal efficiencies are reported for a one step washing using 0.5% surfactant solutions, except for the case of mezquite gum, where a 0.1% solution was employed.