Remediation of a soil contaminated with polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)

Sites contaminated with polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) pose serious health and safety risks to the surrounding environment due to their toxicity, persistence and accumulation in the environment. Because certain members of this class have been demonstrated to be both carcinogenic and mutagenic, PAHs are considered as environmental priority pollutants (US EPA). The studies in this thesis provide an efficient, economical and environmentally benign technique for the remediation of PAH contaminated soil/sediment by means of PAH mobilization with surfactant followed with a catalytic hydrogenation in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2).Catalytic hydrogenation of naphthalene, acenaphthylene, ancenaphthene, anthracene, phenanthrene, chrysene and benzo[a]pyrene over alumina supported palladium (5% Pd0/gammaAl2O3) commercial catalyst were investigated in either a batch reaction mode or a continuous reaction system in H2-scCO2 (∼5% v/v). The hydrocarbon compounds were efficiently reduced to their corresponding fully saturated polycyclic hydrocarbon homologs with mild conditions of temperature (90°C) and pressure (60 psi H2 or 3000 psi H2-scCO2). The bacterial reverse mutation assay demonstrated that both the fully and partially hydrogenated products of chrysene and benzo[a]pyrene were devoid of mutagenic activity.A laboratory study was conducted on the surfactant-assisted mobilization of PAH compounds combined with reagent regeneration and detoxification steps to generate innocuous products. Five minutes of ultrasonication of field contaminated soil with a 3% (w/v) surfactant suspension mobilized appreciable quantities of all PAH compounds. Formulating the Brij 98 surfactant in 0.1 M phosphate buffer (pH 8.0) mobilized the largest quantities of PAH compounds and the recovery of surfactant (>90%) but soil residues exceeded permissible maxima for five- and six-ring analytes. Five successive washes were required to reduce the residual fraction to permissible levels. The mobilized PAH compounds were then detoxified at line by catalytic hydrogenation in a 5% H2-scCO2 (v/v) atmosphere.New palladium hydrogenation catalysts were fabricated in the laboratory with specific processes on various supports. The hydrogenation of phenanthrene and benzo[a]pyrene in a fixed bed micro reactor demonstrated that the catalyst that was fabricated from organosoluble precursor loaded on aluminum oxide (2.5% Pd0/gammaAl2O3) was four times more efficient than the commercial catalyst that was used for PAH hydrogenations