Contamination in soil

Bossert ID, GC Compeau (1995) Cleanup of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in soil. In Microbial transformation and Degradation of Toxic Organic Chemicals (Eds LY Young and CE Cerniglia), pp. 77-125. Wiley-Liss, New York. 

Phytoremediation is a process that uses plants to remove, transfer, stabilize, or destroy contaminants in soil, sediment, and groundwater. The phytoremediation process may be applied in situ or ex situ, to soils, sludges, sediments, other solids, or groundwater.98... 

Introduction to Organic Contaminants in Soil Concepts and Risks... 

The Committee on Bioavailability of Contaminants in Soils and Sediments of National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies USA chose to define the bioavailability process instead of bioavailability to avoid the confounding use of the term bioavailability (National Research Council 2003). According to the NRC report, bioavailability processes are the individual physical, chemical, and biological interactions... 

Mihelcic JR, Lueking DR, Mitzell RJ, Stapleton JM (1993) Bioavailability of sorbed- and separate-phase chemicals. Biodegradation 4 141-153 National Research Council (2003) Bioavailability of contaminants in soils and sediments processes, tools, and applications. The National Academies Press, Washington DC, USA... 

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons together with other xenobiotics are a major source of contamination in soil, and their correct degradation is of great environment importance. 

Air concentrations up to 3.9 pg As/m3 near gold mining operations were associated with adverse effects on vegetation. Higher concentrations of 19 to 69 pg As/m3, near a coal-fired power plant in Czechoslovakia, produced measurable contamination in soils and vegetation in a 6-km radius (NRCC 1978). 

Thermal processes like pyrolysis use heat to increase the volatility (separation) to burn, decompose, or detonate (destruction) or to melt (immobilization) contaminants in soil. Separation technologies include thermal desorption and hot gas decontamination. Destruction technologies include incineration, open bum/open detonation, and pyrolysis. Vitrification is used to immobilize inorganic compounds and to destroy some organic materials. In contrast, pyrolysis transforms... 

The role of green plants in natural attenuation is an important way of phytostabilazation of degraded areas, especially in the abandoned mine areas where well adapted and tolerant spontaneous plants grow. These plants contribute to decrease soil erosion, the mobility of contaminants in soil and to reduce or eliminate the risk to both human health and the environment. 

Contaminants in soils and sediments can be adsorbed on to inorganic minerals such as clays and metal oxides, notably hydrated iron oxide, FeOOH and manganese dioxide, Mn02, or adsorbed on to organic matter such as humic... 

Describe two situations where a lysimeter would be invaluable for studying the chemistry of a contaminant in soil. 

Two-dimensional GC can be used to separate complex mixtures of polyaromatic compounds, and MS used to subsequently identify the compounds. In this method, the original sample is injected into a gas chromatograph with one type of column. As the components exit the first GC, they are fed into a second GC, with a different column, for further separation and finally into a mass spectrometer. In this way, compounds that coeluted from the first column are separated on the second. Focant et al. [19] were able to separate polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin (PCDD), polychlorinated dibenzofuran (PCDF), and coplanar polychlorinated biphenyl (cPCB) using this type of analytical procedure, including isotope dilution TOF-MS. These compounds are frequently found as contaminants in soils surrounding industrial settings thus, the ability to separate and identify them is extremely important [6,12,19],... 

Commonly used methods for the determination of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in soil are modifications of Environmental Protection Agency method 418.1, which use sonication or a Soxhlet apparatus for analyte extraction and either infrared spectrometry [5] or gas chromatography with flame ionization detection [6-7] for extract analysis. Regardless of the analytical method following the extraction, both modifications use Freon-113, which has been implicated as a cause of ozone depletion. Therefore, alternative methods are being sought for the determination of hydrocarbon contamination in environmental samples that reduce the need for this halogenated solvent. 

Garlucci et al. [1] discuss a method for determining tetrahydrothiophen contaminant in soil using headspace high-resolution gas chromatography together with mass spectrometry. Down to lOng of this substance could be determined. 

Kaplan, I. R., 1989, Forensic Geochemistry in Characterization of Petroleum Contaminants in Soils and Groundwater In Environmental Concerns in the Petroleum Industry (edited by S. M. Testa), Pacific Section of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Symposium Volume, pp. 159-181. 

Kaplan, I. R., 1992, Characterizing Petroleum Contaminants in Soil and Water and Determining Source of Pollutants In Proceedings of the American Petroleum Institute Conference on Petroleum Hydrocarbons and Organic Chemicals in Ground Water Prevention, Detection and Restoration, pp. 3-18. 

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