Remediation of Pb-Contaminated Soil by Soil Washing using Hdrochloric Acid

The feasibility of soil washing was investigated to remediate Pb-contaminated field soil. Hydrochloric acid was used as a washing agent. As mixing time increased from 5 min to 120 min, removal efficiency of Pb from contaminated soil increased from 69.3% to 81.9%. Two times washing with 0.2 M HCl showed 96% removal efficiency even at mixing time of 10 min. The Pb content in soil increased sharply as particle size of soil decreased, and removal efficiency was highly dependent on mixing time and temperature. Based on this result, acid washing technologies can be applied to remediate the Pb-contaminated soil used in this study.