Comparison of Soil Washing Using Conventional Surfactant Solutions and Colloidal Gas Aphron Suspensions

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Abstract
Surfactants have proven to be an effective way of augmenting the removal and mobilization of organics from contaminated soil. A more recent and innovative technology to aid the removal of contaminants from soil is the use of colloidal gas aphron (CGA) suspensions. The performance of CGAs and surfactant solutions in washing soils contaminated with 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D) was investigated and compared with the process of washing soils with aqueous solutions of surfactants as in conventional surfactant flushing. In general it was observed that there was no significant difference in the performance of the two processes of soil washing for a highly soluble compound like 2,4-D. However, the surfactant consumption per gram of 2,4-D recovered from the soil was higher for conventional washing than for CGA solutions. CGAs also had a significant advantage over surfactant solutions in that at low flow rates, the pumping of CGAs showed lower pressure drops across the soil column.