Soil Washing to Remove Mixed Wastes

Objective The goal of this laboratory exercise is to acquaint students with some of the chemical reactions that result in the binding of inorganic and organic pollutants in subsurface materials. Extractants used by engineers to release contaminants at hazardous waste sites (where mixtures of both types of contaminants are present) may or may not prove effective, depending upon their mechanism of action. In this laboratory exercise, students will test the efficacy of a variety of proposed extractants in the removal of a mixture of an inorganic metal cation, and an organic compound from a contaminated porous medium.