Effect of Voltage variation on the Geotechnical Properties and Removal Efficiency of Heavy Metal Contaminants from Contaminated Soil using Electrokinetic Remediation Technique

A lot of research work has shown that despite the effectiveness of the electrokinetic remediation technology in decontaminating heavy metal contaminated soils, more work is still required to fully understand the role of voltage in the remediation process. There is need to establish the optimum voltage that would best remove heavy metals from such contaminated soil and its attendant effect on the geotechnical properties of the remediated soil. Effect of voltage variation on the removal efficiency of lead, copper and the geotechnical properties of remediated heavy metal contaminated soil using electrokinetic remediation technique was investigated in this research. The contaminated soil was remediated by applying direct current (DC) to the remediation setup at 0.5V/cm, 1.0V/cm, 1.5V/cm and 2.0V/cm. The concentration of the heavy metals after remediation were determined using the Oxford Instrument Analyzer to evaluate removal efficiency, geotechnical properties tests were also conducted on the soil specimens at each phase of remediation. The results showed that the lead removal efficiency was highest at 2.0V/cm (86%) with the shortest remediation time of 5days and lowest at 0.5V/cm (39%) at 9days. 52% of copper was removed at 2.0V/cm in 5days and 29% at 0.5V/cm after 9days of remediation. At 1.0V/cm, the lead and copper removal efficiency are 75% and 40% respectively. There was no significant change in the Specific Gravity of all the soil samples with the test results lying between 2.0 and 2.2. The soil is generally silty fine sand with not less than 40% passing the sieve no.200 (75micron). 45% passed through sieve 75micron for unremediated soil and slightly reduced to 40%, 40.4% and 40.2% for 30V, 45V and 60V respectively. The soil is non-plastic with the liquid limit of between 25.8% and 29.5% belonging to the A-4 group of soil. The maximum dry density improved across all the three compactive efforts, from 1.8390g/cm3 to 1.8480g/cm3 with WAS compactive effort and from 1.8000g/cm3 to 1.8320g/cm3 with BSL method with an average optimum moisture content of 10%. The CBR values increases with increase in voltage applied. The unsoaked CBR values averagely increased with 31%, 18% and 7% for BSH, WAS and BSL compactive efforts respectively. The durability index with resistances of 89% and 90% to loss in strength was recorded at 1.0V/cm and 1.5V/cm respectively, this, when compared to the resistance to loss in strength of 71% in unremediated soil has respectively 25.3% and 26.8% durability advantages. There was also a consistent increase in the UCS values, from 381kN/m2 to 474kN/m2 and from 351kN/m2 to 447kN/m2 when WAS and BSL methods of compaction were used. Generally, there was improvement in the geotechnical properties of the remediated soil. These improvements are maximum at 1.0V/cm and 1.5V/cm with little or no further improvement at 2.0V/cm. It is recommended that 1.0V and 1.5V are suitable for remediation purpose since it requires low energy consumption.