Environmental remediation of Pb-Cd contaminated soil with organic phosphonic acids-saponin: Conditions, effectiveness, ecological risk and recovery

Abstract

Soil washing is a rapid and efficient method for heavy metals removal. In this study, a kind of novel environmentally friendly eluent is proposed, consisting of ethylenediamine tetra methylene phosphonic acid and saponin (E-S). In a response surface optimization design (RSOD), the operating parameters were optimized and ecological effects were investigated. Additionally, soil microbial diversity and composition were discussed. Finally, an optimal method for chelator recovery was presented. The single-factor and RSOD results showed that E-S had higher remediation efficiency for Pb-Cd contaminated soil with the best parameters of duration 240 min, temperature 40 °C, E/S ratio 1:1. Under these operating conditions, the removal rates of Pb and Cd were (72.2 ± 0.5)% and (61.2 ± 0.4)% for the artificially contaminated soil and (69.2 ± 0.1)% and (65.2 ± 0.2)% for in situ contaminated soil, respectively. The contents of Pb and Cd decreased from 562.36 mg/kg to 180.41 mg/kg and 80.96 mg/kg to 27.2 mg/kg respectively, and the soil ecological risk indexes reduced from 32% to 24% for Pb and 36%-27% for Cd. Owing to the efficient enrichment of Stenotrophomonas in soil, E-S has a potential of simultaneous removal effect on organic pollutants as well. Furthermore, the results revealed that E-S can be effectively recovered (>95%) by sodium sulfide precipitation.

Keywords: Ecological risk; Industrial soil; Organic phosphonic acid; Recovery; Soil washing.