Electrokinetic remediation of organic contamination

Abstract

Electrokinetics (EK) has emerged as a potential in situ soil remediation, particularly effective in low-permeability soils which are often difficult to treat by other treatment techniques. Although EK has been successfully applied in metal removal, for organic decontamination, it is still a new approach in developing stage. In this review, EK principles applied in the remediation of organic contaminated soils, the strong points as well as limitations, and the influential factors will be presented. Key parameters and performances of recent studies on different enhanced electrokinetic remediation of various organic contaminants are summarized for comparison. The paper also gives an overview on the state-of-art as well as future direction of electrokinetic organic decontamination.

Keywords:

• electrokinetics
• soil remediation
• organic removal
• enhanced electrokinetics
• electroosmosis
• electrochemical soil remediation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank Laboratory of Green Chemistry, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland for their funding to this study.