ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the following conditions tend to promote greater removals of contaminants from Chem-dyne soils: high ratios of surfactant volume to soil weight scrubbed; increased scrubbing times (up to 3 weeks); and higher surfactant concentrations (up to 2%). To investigate photolysis as a means of decontaminating surfactant solutions, samples of contaminated Biosoft (anionic) solution and Emcol (cationic) solution were split into two aliquots after soil scrubbing. The soil was from the Chem-dyne hazardous waste site in Hamilton, Ohio which was used to store and dispose of pesticides, chlorinated hydrocarbons, solvents, waste oils, and other hazardous wastes from 1975 to 1980. Clean up of the site was initiated in 1980 and most chemical drums were removed by 1983. Preliminary experiments on leachate from one week soil scrubbing columns show that photolysis is promising as a means of decontaminating surfactant solutions.
