Remediation process monitoring of PAH-contaminated soils using laser-induced fluorescence

In order to investigate the feasibility of Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF) for soil remediation process monitoring, the variation in the LIF intensity was studied, in relation to the moisture content and soil particle size distribution for different soil conditions. For each set of conditions, significant correlation was shown between the level of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) and the LIF intensity (R2 > 0.97). Higher fluorescence intensities were measured for PAH contaminated soils with higher sand and moisture contents. The results of the LIF monitoring for the remediation process were compared with the traditional High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) results, after applying a surfactant-enhanced electrokinetic process for the remediation of PAH-contaminated soils. In the electrokinetic (EK) process cell. the PAH concentration, and the normalized LIF intensity near the anode and cathode, showed somewhat contrary trends with respect to the degree of the remediation, even though significantly similar trends were observed in the middle of the soil cell. This may be interpreted as the EK remediation advances, as the electro osmotic flow induce a different moisture and silt/clay, or sand, distribution throughout the soil media, which in turn influences the LIF intensity of the soils. Therefore, in order to overcome these differences, the corrected LIF intensity, using the diffuse reflectance, was applied, which showed a similar remediation trend for the soil specimens in the electrokinetic process cell.