Soil washing in combination with electrochemical advanced oxidation for the remediation of synthetic soil heavily contaminated with diesel

Abstract Sequential soil washing and electrochemical advanced oxidation processes (EAOPs) were applied for the remediation of synthetic soil contaminated with diesel. The surfactant Tween 80 was used to enhance the extraction of diesel from synthetic soil, and diesel extraction efficiency was improved with the increase of Tween 80 concentration. Under conditions of 180 min washing time, 10 g synthetic soil with 100 mL surfactant solution and two times of soil washing, about 75.2%, 80.0% and 87.9% of diesel was extracted from synthetic soil with 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0 g L−1 Tween 80. The degradation of diesel in soil washing effluent was carried out by two EAOPs, electro-oxidation (EO) and electro-Fenton (EF) using boron-doped diamond (BDD) anode and carbon felt cathode cell. After 360 min EO treatment, 72.7–83.0% of diesel was removed from the effluent after soil washing with 5.0–10.0 g L−1 Tween 80 while higher removal efficiencies (77.7–87.2%) were attained with EF process. Parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) of excitation emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy was conducted to analysis the transformation of fluorescent components in diesel during the treatment by two EAOPs.