Application of Alcohols in Leaching of Polluted Solid Matrixes

Abstract

Ethanol and propan-2-ol were used to verify the efficiency of removing persistent organic pollutants from real soil contaminated with PCB (395 mg kg^-1) or with oil and tar substances (57,5 g kg^-1). In batch extraction 65-90 % contaminants were removed with both solvents. An influence of water content in solvent was examined in a series of experiments. The presence of water in the solvents decreases the extraction efficiency more for oil and tar substances than for PCB. 96 % of PCB and 75 % of oil and tar substances were removed from soil by washing in a column, using five pore volumes of propan-2-ol. Distillation and membrane separation were the methods considered for solvent recovery.