Ex-situ thermal desorption of hydrocarbon contaminated soils: experimental treatability tests at laboratory scale

Within an integrated and standardised management plan for the remediation of contaminated sites at a given territorial scale (national, regional or provincial), on a site-specific basis the performance of preliminary treatability tests could be useful and/or expressly requested by the control authority in order to evaluate – in a reliable way – the overall feasibility of a given remedial option. As far as at least the Italian situation is concerned, thermal desorption process appears as a favourable and innovative treatment technology for semivolatile and volatile organic compounds. An experimental, simple lab-scale desorber for treatability tests has been planned, realised and firstly applied on some soils with different textures „ad hoc“ contaminated with diesel-oil, at various desorption process conditions (as heating temperature and reactor retention time). The achievement of the Italian soil quality standard on hydrocarbons (C > 12 group) of 50 mg kg-1 DM (dry matter) for residential-recreational land use has been specifically assumed as successful goal for the carried out treatability studies. As a possible, direct conclusion of the performed experimental tests, the resulting most appropriate process conditions for desorption treatment have been summarised in a preliminary, simple attempt of treatment applicability matrix.

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