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Abstract
The cleaning of mineral oil contaminated soils by means of soil washing presently is not economically feasible in case of soils with high contents of fine particles (i.e. clay and silt). An additional flotation step within a soil washing plant can be helpful to clean these soils. The effects of pH value and flotation agent were investigated in a laboratory flotation cell. Pilotscale flotation experiments were carried out in a pneumatic flotation plant with two soils contaminated with different concentrations of mineral oils. It was found that best results were gained at pH-values below 3, and that the cleaning result may be influenced by adding flotation reagents. Integrating a flotation step into a soil washing plant can reduce the residual oil content in the cleaned soil fraction significantly. An example demonstrates that the integration of a flotation step may improve the efficiency of the conventional soil washing process. It may thus extend the applicability of soil washing to the remediation of soils with high content of fine particles.