Risk-Based Approach for Thermal Treatment of Soils Contaminated with Heavy Metals

Abstract

In the actual context of limited soil resources and the significant degree of environmental pollution, public administrations and authorities are interested in restoring contaminated sites paying attention to the impact of these soils on human health. This paper aims to present the efficiency of the the incineration as a method for treatment of the contaminated soils t based on human health risk assessment. Through various experimentations, the following metals have been studied: Zn, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Cr, Co, Cd, Hg, As and Be. The most important and interesting results concerning both thermal treatment removal efficiency and associated human health risk assessments were achieved concerning Cd, Pb and Ni contaminants. The behavior of Cadmium (Cd), Lead (Pb) and Nickel (Ni) concentrations from heavy metals incineration soil has been analyzed for three incineration temperatures (600°C, 800°C and 1000°C) and two resident times of soil within the incineration reactor (30 min. and 60 min.). In this case, the level of contaminants in the treated soil can be reduced but not enough to ensure an acceptable risk for human health.

Keywords

• Heavy metals
• risk assessment
• incineration
• soil decontamination