Crude oil contaminated soil washing in air sparging assisted stirred tank reactor using biosurfactants

This study investigated the removal of crude oil from soil using air sparging assisted stirred tank reactors. Two surfactants (rhamnolipid and sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS) were tested and the effects of different parameters (i.e. temperature, surfactant concentrations, washing time, volume/mass ratio) were investigated under varying washing modes namely, stirring only, air sparging only and the combination of stirring and air sparging. The results showed that SDS removed more than 80% crude oil from non-weathered soil samples, whilst rhamnolipid showed similar oil removal at the third and fourth levels of the parameters tested. The oil removal ability of the seawater prepared solutions were better than those of the distilled water solutions at the first and second levels of temperature and concentration of surfactant solutions. This approach of soil washing was noted to be effective in reducing the amount of oil in soil. Therefore we suggested that a field scale test be conducted to assess the efficiency of these surfactants.