Ultrasound and Surfactant aided soil washing process has been shown to be an effective method to remove diesel from soils. The use of surfactants can improve the mobility of diesel in soil-water systems by increasing solubility of adsorbed diesel into surfactant micelles. However, a large amount of surfactant is required for treatment. In addition, synthetic surfactants, specially anionic, are more toxic and the surfactant wastewater is hard to treat by conventional wastewater treatments even by AOPs. Ultrasound improves desorption of the diesel adsorbed on to soil. The mechanisms are based on physical breakage of bonds by hot spot, directly impact onto soil particle surface, the fragmentation of long-chain hydrocarbons by micro-jet and microstreaming in the soil pores. The use of ultrasound as an enhancement method in both anionic and nonionic surfactant aided soil-washing processes were studied. And all experiments were examined proceeded under CMC surfactant concentration, frequency 35 khz, power 400 W, Soil-water ratio 1:3(wt%), particle size 0.24 ~ 2mm and initial diesel concentration. 20,000 mg/kg. Combination with ultrasound showed significant enhancements on all the processes. Especially, nonionic surfactant Triton-X100 with ultrasound showed remarkable enhancements and diesel removal rate enhanced by ultrasound helps desorpting of surfactant adsorbed onto soils which prevented decreasing surfactant activity.

The removal characteristics of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) and heavy metals in contaminated soils with ultrasonic washing have been studied. The ultrasonic washing was evaluated on a laboratory scale. In this investigation, the effects of factors such as ultrasonic frequency, power intensity, duration of irradiation, contents of the TPHs and heavy metals and mixing ratios between the contaminated soils and water, were considered. Experimental results suggested that the rates for contaminant extraction of the TPHs and heavy metals in the contaminated soil increased considerably with the ultrasonic washing. Therefore, the ultrasonic washing has previously been to be an effective method to remediate the contaminated soils with the TPHs and heavy metals.

This study has been carried out to examine the feasibility of soil washing process for reducing arsenic contamination level of soil around Dalchên Mine. The results of physicochemical tests of the target soil showed that pH was weak alkalic (pH ~- 7.8), soil texture was coarse sand, and organic contents (5.7%) and CEC (Cation exchange capacity; 21.5 meq/100 g) were similar with those of soils generally found in Korea. Contamination levels of arsenic were found to over 201 mg/kg which exceed the Korea standard levels of countermeasure and concern. To investigate chemical partitioning of heavy metals, sequential extraction procedures were adopted and it was found that arsenic was predominantly associated with the residual fraction among five fractional forms as much as over 85%, which is demonstrating that only less than 15% of all might be vulnerable to a selected washing agents. Among 6 kinds of washing agents applied on the screening for arsenic-contaminated soil, HCl and H3PO4 solution were selected as promising washing agents. In comparison with HCl and H3PO4 solutions for arsenic washing by kinetic experiment in the change of pH, soil-solution ratio, temperature, and washing solution concentration, H3PO4 solution was determined to best one of agents tested, which showed faster washing rate than HCl to accomplish regulatory goal.