| The purpose of this research was to determine if two commonly used soil-washing extracting agents, namely EDTA and nitric acid, could be recycled and reused in subsequent soil-washing processes. This research focuses on the removal of lead from three real-world soils collected from military installations and the evaluation of a chelating polymer termed Type-M ForagerRTM Sponge to recycle the soil-washing effluent.; The results of this experiment indicate that Type-M ForagerRTM Sponge was able to remove metal contaminants from the EDTA soil-washing effluent without hindering the ability of EDTA to be reused in subsequent soil-washing processes. In contrast, acid soil-washing effluents were neutralized during the first soil-washing simulation for each of the soils tested, disabling the solution from being recycled. Therefore, the Type-M ForagerRTM Sponge was evaluated and proved to be effective as a waste minimization process instead of a recycle process for the acid soil-washing effluents. |
