Application of Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE) Technique for the Treatment of Hydrocarbon Contaminated Soils

In recent years, production and use of petroleum products, such as gasoline, have been increasing. This increase is followed by numerous ecological consequences. Among them, the most important ecological effects of using gasoline is contamination of soils at refineries and gas stations. Hazards of gasoline leakage into the soil and its migration to groundwater could be attributed to the existence of BTEX compounds, which are the main constituents of gasoline with high toxicity and volatility values.
In this study, the removal of BTEX contaminants from soil samples contaminated with gasoline has been investigated using Soil Vapor Extraction technique. The treatment tests were conducted at 3 time intervals of 4, 8 and 12 hours and 3 different temperatures of 20, 40 and 60°C.
The results of tests indicate the high suitability of SEV technique showung %99 removal efficiency for BTEX compounds from soil samples. Moreover, the results of the analysis present that the removal of contaminants an inverse relation with their boiling points in this techniques. Also, raising the temperature of the samples from 20°C to 40°C and from 40°C to 60°C during 12 hours increased the removal efficiencies of BTEX compounds by %10 and %26, respectively.
The results of this study revealed that SVE technique for the removal of aromatic organic compound from soil is an efficient technique which can lead to high efficiency for the removal of such contaminats from soil, if implented properly.