Enhancement of Electrokinetic Decontamination with EDTA

Department

Civil and Construction Engineering

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-5-2012

Abstract

The effect of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) during electrokinetic decontamination (EKD) was investigated in this research. EDTA is a ligand that can form soluble complexes with precipitated heavy metals inside soil pores. Millpond sludge, primarily contaminated with lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn), was subjected to EKD with and without the presence of EDTA. Dilute EDTA solutions with strengths of 0.05 M and 0.125 M were injected into the millpond sludge by electroosmosis. Several beneficial effects of using EDTA were observed in this research. One was that the presence of EDTA substantially increased the electroosmotic (EO) flow in the millpond sludge indicating that it could significantly reduce the duration of EKD. Another advantage was that a significantly higher percentage of Pb and Zn removal was achieved from the solid phase due to the complexation of EDTA with these heavy metals. Also, EDTA was able to prevent the precipitation of metals at the cathode electrode, typically observed in EKD process.

Journal Title

Environmental Technology

Journal ISSN

1479-487X

Volume

33

Issue

20

First Page

2291

Last Page

2298

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1080/09593330.2012.665493

Share

COinS