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Electrokinetic-Fenton remediation of organochlorine pesticides from historically polluted soil

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Abstract

Soil contamination by persistent organic pollutants (POPs) poses a great threat to historically polluted soil worldwide. In this study, soils were characterized, and organochlorine pesticides contained in the soils were identified and quantified. Individual electrokinetic (IE), EK-Fenton-coupled technologies (EF), and enhanced EK-Fenton treatment (E-1, E-2, and E-3) were applied to remediate soils contaminated with hexachloro-cyclohexane soprocide (HCH) and dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT). Variation of pH, electrical conductivity, and electroosmotic flow was evaluated during the EK-Fenton process. The IE treatment showed low removal efficiency for HCHs (30.5%) and DDTs (25.9%). In the EF treatment, the highest removal level (60.9%) was obtained for α-HCH, whereas P,P-DDT was the lowest (40.0%). Low solubility of pollutants impeded the HCH and DDT removal. After enhanced EK-Fenton treatment, final removal of pollutants decreased as follows: β-HCH (82.6%) > γ-HCH (81.6%) > α-HCH (81.2%) > δ-HCH (80.0%) > P,P-DDD (73.8%) > P,P-DDE (73.1%) > P,P-DDT (72.6%) > O,P-DDT (71.5%). The results demonstrate that EK-Fenton is a promising technology for POP removal in historically polluted soil.

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Acknowledgments

This study is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51178440). We thank Alex Boon, PhD, from Liwen Bianji, Edanz Group China (www.liwenbianji.cn/ac), for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing, 400714, China

    Maofei Ni

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Maofei Ni

  3. Research Institute of Solid Waste Management, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Shulei Tian & Qifei Huang

  4. School of River and Ocean Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing, 400074, China

    Yanmei Yang

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  1. Maofei Ni
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  2. Shulei Tian
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Correspondence to Shulei Tian or Qifei Huang.

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Responsible editor: Vítor Pais Vilar

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Ni, M., Tian, S., Huang, Q. et al. Electrokinetic-Fenton remediation of organochlorine pesticides from historically polluted soil. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 12159–12168 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-1479-3

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