ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide an overview of two related technologies that are still very much in the development stage: soil surfactant flushing and soil surfactant washing. The use of aqueous surfactant systems for the recovery of oil has been common for some years and certainly suggests the employment of surfactants for the remediation of soils and aquifers contaminated with hydrophobic organics. Micelle formation and micellar solubilization of hydrophobic compounds have been the subjects of a number of rather complex and sophisticated treatment. Surfactant remediation techniques are still in a rather exploratory stage, so their evaluation for use at any particular site involves more uncertainty than one finds with techniques in more advanced states of development. Valsaraj and Thibodeaux have shown that there is a useful correlation between octanol/water partition coefficients and the micellar phase/water partition coefficients that arise in surfactant flushing and surfactant washing.
