Effect of surfactants on desorption of aldicarb from spiked soil

Surfactant enhanced desorption of aldicarb from spiked soil was investigated in this paper. Anionic (sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate, SDBS), cationic (hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide, HTAB) and nonionic (octyl polyethylene glycol phenyl ether, OP) surfactants were tested to determine their optimal desorption conditions including desorption time, mixing speed and surfactant concentrations. The results showed that the optimal operating conditions were obtained at 2 h, 150 rpm, and surfactants concentrations were 1000, 100, and 200 mg l−1 for SDBS, OP, and HTAB, respectively. The paper also investigated the desorption efficiency of mixture of different kinds of surfactants for aldicarb-spiked soil, and found that anionic–nonionic surfactant mixtures gave the best desorption efficiency up to 77%, while anionic–cationic surfactant mixture gave a poor desorption efficiency similar to water, suggesting that mixture of anionic–nonionic surfactants were highly promising on remediation of aldicarb-contaminated soil.