Chemosphere 58 (2005) 291–298

www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere

Dissolution and removal of PAHs from a contaminated

soil using sunflower oil
a,b
Zongqiang Gong , Kassem Alef c, B.-M. Wilke c,*
, Peijun Li a

a
Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 417, Shenyang 110016, PR China
b
Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, PR China
c
Institute of Ecology, Technical University Berlin, Franklinstrasse 29, D-10587 Berlin, Germany

Received 28 August 2003; received in revised form 25 June 2004; accepted 13 July 2004

Abstract

This study reports on the feasibility of remediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contaminated soils
using sunflower oil, an environmentally-friendly solvent. Batch experiments were performed to test the influence of oil/
soil ratio on the remediation of PAH contaminated soil, and to test the mass transfer behaviors of PAHs from soil to
oil. An empirical model was employed to describe the kinetics of PAH dissolution and to predict equilibrium concen-
trations of PAHs in oil. PAH containing oil was regenerated using active carbon. Results show that dissolution of
PAHs from a Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) soil at oil/soil ratios of one or two were almost the same. Nearly all
PAHs (81–100%) could be removed by sunflower oil dissolution. Mass transfer coefficients for low molecular PAHs
namely fluoranthene, phenanthrene and anthracene were one or two orders of magnitude higher than those for high
molecular PAHs with 4–6 rings. Ninety milliliters of PAH containing oil could be regenerated by 10 g active carbon
in a batch reactor. Such a remediation procedure indicates that sunflower oil is a promising agent for the removal
of PAHs from MGP soils. However, further research is required before the method can be used for in situ remediation
of contaminated sites.
Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; Soil remediation; Vegetable oil; Mass transfer; Equilibrium partitioning

1. Introduction and sediments. Bioremediation by the use of living

Many laboratory and field studies have been carried
out to date to achieve the cost-effective remediation of
hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs) in soils
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 30314 71193; fax: +49
30314 71431.
E-mail address: bmwilke@tu-berlin.de (B.-M. Wilke).
organisms, has been applied for the removal of organic
contaminants, such as PCBs, PAHs, BTEX, TNT from
soil (Wang et al., 1990; Macdonald and Rittmann,
1993; Bradley and Chapelle, 1995; Pagano et al., 1995;
Tiehm et al., 1997; Daun et al., 1998; Bruns-Nagel
et al., 1998; Rockne and Strand, 1998). Unfortunately,
even though bioremediation is one of the most cost-
effective technologies, removals of HOCs, especially
PAHs and PCBs with high molecular weights, were
not efficient as expected (May et al., 1997; Cornelissen

0045-6535/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2004.07.035
292 Z. Gong et al. / Chemosphere 58 (2005) 291–298
et al., 1998). This was mainly due to their extremely low
solubility and slow desorption into the aqueous phase.
In recent years, many researchers have proposed
some novel remediation measures to clean HOC con-
taminated soils. The use of surfactants has been applied
successfully for removal of soil-bound HOCs (West and
Harwell, 1992; Yeom et al., 1996). Because of political
and environmental reasons the use of surfactants and
other chemical solvents has been prohibited in some
countries (Dadkhah and Akgerman, 2002). Supercriti-
cal fluid extraction (SFE) is also a technology that
has been widely explored when cleaning organic con-
taminated soils. CO2 and water appear to be the most
common fluids used for SFE (Schleussinger et al.,
1996; Lagadec et al., 2000). However, SFE necessitates
very special materials of construction in addition to the
cost of high temperatures and pressures and cannot be
used in situ.
With the aforesaid problems in mind, we are trying to
find an environmentally-friendly solvent, which has
additional advantages of being readily available, non-
toxic and low in cost for the efficient in situ remediation
of Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) sites heavily con-
taminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs). MGPs produced gas by cracking oil or coal
and by releasing light hydrocarbons that were used for
lighting and household needs. MGP sites exist com-
monly in many countries. At MGPs that use coal, the
primary residual carbon was pyrolyzed coal particles.
At MGPs that use oil, a finer organic carbon residue
similar to lampblack soot was produced. In both cases,
the primary organic pollutants of concern are PAHs
(Hawthorne et al., 2002). Residual PAHs-containing
material, either mixed in soils or sediments or occurring
as a discrete phase, can also lead to the long-term
desorption and dissolution of PAHs into groundwater
(Haeseler et al., 1999). A number of chemical solvents
have been explored to extract PAHs from contaminated
soil aiming for soil remediation rather than analysis
(Khodadoust et al., 2000; Rababah and Matsuzawa,
2002). The advantages of using vegetable oil as nontoxic,
inexpensive, and effective solvent for extraction of poly-
chlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans have
been reported by Isosaari et al. (2001). The safety of field
applications was also demonstrated in their report. To
our knowledge, the possibility of using vegetable oil to
remove PAHs from weathered MGP soils has not been
investigated yet.
The objectives of this study were: (a) to determine
dissolution of individual PAHs from a weathered
MGP soil by the use of sunflower oil; (b) to investigate
the effects of PAH molecular weight and contact time
on the transport and removal rates of PAHs; (c) to test
the influence of oil/soil ratio on the removals of PAHs
from soil; (d) to regenerate PAH containing oil for re-
cycling purpose using activated carbon.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Soil sample
A sandy soil (95.6% sand, 0.6% silt, 3.8% clay) was
collected from a former MGP site historically contami-
nated with PAHs. It was sieved to <2 mm to break soil
clumps and to remove rocks and was then mechanically
mixed to ensure homogeneity. The field moist soil was
stored at 4 °C for further experiments. The soil had a
pH of 6.6 (measured in 0.01 M CaCl2) and an organic
carbon content of 4.6%. It contained 5450 mg PAH
kg
1 soil. Concentrations of individual PAHs are given
in Table 1. Homogeneity of the soil was verified by par-
allel extraction. With exception of naphthalene standard
deviations of PAH concentrations in the soil varied be-
tween 2% and 11% (Table 1).
2.2. Solubilization of soil-bound PAHs using sunflower oil
Extraction of PAHs from the MGP soil using sun-
flower oil was investigated in batch experiments. In
our preliminary experiments we tested three different
oils, i.e., sunflower oil, rape oil and soybean oil. Results
showed that the three oils had the same extraction effi-
ciency (Alef et al., 2003a). Sunflower oil was chosen
for further investigation because it was the cheapest
one. To test mass transfer rates of PAHs from soil to
sunflower oil, 150 ml sunflower oil was poured into a
glass bottle, which contained 150 or 75 g MGP soil.
The bottles were sealed and mechanically shaken at
200 rpm on an orbital shaker. After 5, 15, 50 min and
1, 3, 7 d, the soil suspensions were settled for 5 min
and an aliquot of oil sample was withdrawn into a 4-
ml vial for future analysis.
2.3. Modeling the dissolution kinetics of PAHs from
MGP soil
In order to describe the kinetics of PAHs dissolution,
an empirical first order model was employed. This model
can be used when dissolution (or desorption) arises out
of equilibrium partitioning and mass transfer phenom-
ena take place between two phases, one of which is a liq-
uid phase and the other is a solid phase. The theoretical
basis of this model is that at equilibrium, there is no net
transfer between two phases and partition coefficients
can be used to represent the ratio of the concentration
of the same chemical species in two phases. Relative con-
centrations of PAHs between two distinct phases pro-
vide an explicit measure of the propensity of PAHs to
exist in each phase. In this study, the kinetics of PAH
dissolution and equilibrium was plotted, and mass trans-
fer theory was used to derive first-order mass transfer
coefficients and equilibrium oil phase concentration by
fitting the data to
 Z. Gong et al. / Chemosphere 58 (2005) 291–298 293

Table 1
PAH concentrations in the MGP soil
PAHs Water solubility (mg/l)a log Kowa PAH in soil
Conc (mg/kg) Sd (%)
Naphthalene 30 3.37 5.7 101.8
Acenaphthylene 3.47 4.33 175.8 2.7
Acenaphthene 3.93 4.07 550.4 3.7
Fluorene 1.98 4.18 291.7 2.9
Phenanthrene 1.29 4.46 1111.6 6.7
Anthracene 0.07 4.45 147.1 4.1
Fluoranthene 0.26 5.33 519.8 6.8
Pyrene 0.14 5.32 1312.4 2.8
Benz(a)anthracene 0.014 5.61 278.4 6.7
Chrysene 0.002 5.61 239.1 2.6
Benzo(b)fluoranthene 0.0012 6.57 117.3 5.1
Benzo(k)fluoranthene 0.0006 6.84 72.2 6.9
Benzo(a)pyrene 0.0038 6.04 301.9 2.4
Dibenz(ah)anthracene 0.0005 6.5 51.9 8.5
Benzo(ghi)perylene 0.00026 7.1 200 10.8
Indenopyrene 0.062 7.66 77.8 10.4
Sum of PAHs 5453.2
a
According to Tiehm et al. (1997) and Sim and Overcash (1983).

C 0 ¼ C e ½1
expð
ktÞ
where C0 is the PAH concentration of the oil phase at
time t, k is the lumped mass transfer coefficient, Ce is
the equilibrium oil-phase concentration and t is the con-
tact time with oil (Woolgar and Jones, 1999). Fitting of
the data to the equation was achieved using a nonlinear
curve fitting of software Sigma.
2.4. Feasibility of sunflower oil regeneration
The feasibility of oil regeneration was investigated
using activated carbon to adsorb PAHs from used oil
by means of batch experiment in an Erlenmeyer flask
(250 ml nominal volume). A total of 90 ml used oil
was poured into a 250-ml Erlenmeyer flask, to which
10 or 20 g activated carbon was added, a flask without
activated carbon served as a control. The Erlenmeyer
flasks were placed upright on the flat bed orbital shaker
rotating at 150 rpm for 24 h. The suspensions were set-
tled and oil samples were taken and filtered through
glass membrane for PAH analysis.
2.5. Methods for analyses of contaminated soil and oil
samples
PAHs in soil samples were extracted by a mechanical
chemical extraction procedure proposed by VDLUFA.
The method was most suitable for extraction of PAHs
from highly contaminated soils (Song et al., 2002).
Recovery rates varied between 43.1% for Naphthalene
and 95% for Benzo(k)fluoranthene. Fifteen grams so-
dium chloride, 100 ml deionized water, 200 ml acetone
and 150 ml dichloromethane were added to 10 g soil in
a glass bottle. The bottle was sealed with Teflon screw
cover, placed on the orbital shaker and shaken at 200
rpm over 16 h. After the separation of organic and water
phases, an aliquot of organic phase was cleaned in a
chromatography column filled with 3 g deactivated
aluminum oxide (deactivated by 15% water addition)
and 5 g activated silica gel (70–230 mesh, activated by
oven-heating at 130 °C for 16 h and cooled in a desicca-
tor at least for 10 min before use) and 4 spoons of anhy-
drous sodium sulphate. The chromatography column
was eluted with 100 ml 4:1 hexane:dichloromethane
(v:v). The eluate was concentrated by rotary evaporator
and dried by a stream of nitrogen gas and finally dis-
solved in acetonitrile for HPLC analysis.
The oil sample was dissolved in petroleum ether and
cleaned up in a chromatography column filled with 10 g
activated silica gel (activated under the same conditions
as described above), and 4 spoons of anhydrous sodium
sulphate. The chromatography column was eluted with
100 ml 2:1 toluene:petroleum ether (v:v). An aliquot of
elution was taken and was then dried by nitrogen gas,
and finally dissolved in acetonitrile for HPLC analysis.
The procedure was described by Alef et al. (2003b).
Recovery rates varied between 82.5% for Napththalene
and 105.6% for Fluoranthene. Standard deviations of
three replicates were 3.5 mg kg
1 at a total concentra-
tion of 2925 mg kg
1.
2.6. HPLC analysis
PAH analysis was performed with an HPLC
equipped with a gradient pump (KNAUER K1001),
an autosampler (TSP AS100), and a reverse-phase
294 Z. Gong et al. / Chemosphere 58 (2005) 291–298
C-18 column. Acenaphthylene and indenopyrene were
quantified by UV detector, while the rest of the 14 PAHs
were measured by fluorescence detector (TSP FL2000)
at specific excitation/emission wavelength. Elution con-
ditions were as follows: for the first 5 min, a 1:1 (v:v)
mixture of water and acetonitrile was used as the solvent
at a flow rate of 0.4 ml/min throughout. During the next
15 min, acetonitrile in the mixture was linearly increased
to 100% and maintained at that composition for 15 min.
Thereafter, the solvent composition was returned to ini-
tial conditions within the next 2.5 min. In all cases, 8 ll
of sample was injected to the HPLC by the autosampler.
The concentrations of PAHs were calculated using
HPLC software CHEM EURO 2000. An external stand-
ard 1647d SRM NBS mixture was used for quantifica-
tion of 16 PAHs.
3. Results
3.1. Kinetics of PAH dissolution
Kinetics of PAH dissolution from soil are shown by
plotting the concentrations of PAHs released from the
MGP soil vs. extraction time (Fig. 1). Results for naph-
thalene, acenaphthylene, and acenaphthene are not
given because the reproducibility was very poor owing
to their high volatility. Results of benzo(b)fluoranthene
and benzo(k)fluoranthene were combined into one plot
for their similar structures and figure lay out.
During the initial phase (0–24 h), solubilization was
rapid, which was followed by a phase of slower dissolu-
tion. For the PAHs with three rings, namely fluoran-
thene, phenanthrene and anthracene, an equilibrium
could be approached within 24 h; for the PAHs with
4–6 rings an equilibrium was achieved after 72 h.
The empirical model proposed by Woolgar and Jones
(1999) is suitable to describe the kinetics of PAH disso-
lution in sunflower oil. The correlation coefficients of
individual PAHs are highly significant and varied be-
tween 0.91 and 1 (Table 2). Using this model, we were
able to obtain equilibrium PAH concentrations (Ce)
and mass transfer coefficients (k). Transfer coefficients
for 3-ring PAHs are nearly one or two orders magnitude
higher than those of 4- to 6-ring PAHs, showing that a
close to equilibrium situation will be approached first
for 3-ring PAHs, then for 4- to 6-ring PAHs. Calculated
k-values for the oil/soil ratio of 2:1 are lower than those
for 1:1. Less amount of soil in batch reactor at an oil/soil
ratio of 1:1 would provide more contact sites between
the oil and the soil and thus resulted in relatively higher
k-values in the initial phase of dissolution. The reason
for the higher k-values at 1:1 ratio was also probably
due to the better ‘‘grinding’’ effect between soil particles.
In Fig. 2 we compared the extraction efficiency (in
terms of PAH removal) using sunflower oil with that
using an organic solvent (e.g., acetone, dichlorometh-
ane) for the MGP soil. It can be seen that sunflower
oil at both oil/soil ratios was as effective as organic sol-
vent in removing PAHs from the MGP soil. No matter
what size the PAH molecules were, their removal rates
were similar, which was an advantage of using sunflower
oil if compared with other methodologies that often
have difficulties in removing high molecular weight
PAHs. With respect to the cost of remediation we sug-
gest that the oil/soil ratio of 1:1 should be sufficient even
for highly contaminated soil.
3.2. Regeneration of sunflower oil
Regeneration of sunflower oil is a vital step for the
successful development of remediation process with sun-
flower oil as a solvent. Activated carbon was considered
as a sorbent for the application in batch experiment. The
overall efficiency of sorption process to achieve sun-
flower oil regeneration was determined based on concen-
trations of PAHs in oil before and after the activated
carbon treatment. The remaining percentages of PAHs
in the oil after a sorption process using 10 or 20 g acti-
vated carbon are shown in Fig. 3. For the majority of
PAHs, more than 90% was removed by 20 g activated
carbon. When the amount of activated carbon was re-
duced to 10 g, PAH removal dropped to a lower level,
however, the regeneration result was still satisfactory.
The control (without activated carbon) showed slight
variation from the untreated sunflower oil containing
PAHs, mostly by less than 10%. These results indicate
that activated carbon is a good matrix to remove PAHs
from sunflower oil. However, further investigation is
required to optimize the regeneration process.
4. Discussion
Transport and mass transfers of PAHs from the con-
taminated soil might be key processes responsible for
reducing PAHs of the soil. To achieve maximum PAH
removal, a specific period of time is required. Many
studies on liquid agent remediation of organics contam-
inated soils tried to reduce the time required for the
process (Björklund et al., 1999; Lagadec et al., 2000;
Reid et al., 2000). Also some comparisons were made
between bioremediation and liquid extraction tech-
niques (Hawthorne and Grabanski, 2000). Our results
demonstrate a rapid dissolution of PAH contaminated
soil within 1–3 days. In our experiments, proper mixing
of the oil and soil should not be neglected, which was
also suggested by Isosaari et al. (2001). It should also
be noted that after dissolution of PAHs from contami-
nated soil, the sunflower oil turned dark brown in color,
apparently containing a large amount of co-extracted
soil organic materials. In the soils with organic content
 Z. Gong et al. / Chemosphere 58 (2005) 291–298 295

300 1400 160

250 1200 140
1000 120
200 100
150 800
600 80
100 60
400 40
50 200 20
0 Fluorene Phenanthrene Anthracene
0 0
0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150
500 1400 350
400 1200 300
1000 250
300 800 200
200 600 150
Concentration in oil (mg.l-1)

100 400 100

Fluoranthene 200 Pyrene 50 Benz(a)anthracene
0 0 0
0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150

300 70 400
250 60
200 50 300
150 40
30 200
100 20
50 100
10
0 Chrysene 0 Benzo(b+k)fluoranthene 0 Benzo(a)pyrene

0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150

70 250 80
60 200
50 60
40 150
40
30 100
20 20
50
10 0
0 Dibenz(ah)anthracene 0 Benzo(ghi)perylene Indenopyrene

0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150 0 50 100 150

Time hours

Fig. 1. Dissolution kinetics of PAHs using a first-order model (see Section 2). Experimental dissolution rates and model fitted curves of
PAHs from the MGP soil. The dark circles denote the experimental data for oil/soil ratio of 1:1, the circles denote for oil/soil ratio of
2:1. The solid lines are the model fitting curves for oil/soil ratio of 1:1, whereas the dashed lines are for oil/soil ratio of 2:1.

Table 2
Oil phase equilibrium concentrations of PAHs (Ce) and mass transfer coefficients (k) derived by data fitting using a first-order model
(see Section 2)
Oil/soil ratio 1:1 2:1
PAHs Ce k R2 Ce k R2
Fluorene 230 ± 18 1.91 ± 0.62 0.91 138 ± 5 1.03 ± 0.17 0.98
Phenanthrene 1125 ± 52 0.68 ± 0.16 0.97 606 ± 17 0.52 ± 0.08 0.99
Anthracene 145 ± 11 0.94 ± 0.31 0.92 76 ± 4 0.80 ± 0.19 0.97
Fluoranthene 440 ± 27 0.05 ± 0.01 0.98 232 ± 18 0.05 ± 0.02 0.96
Pyrene 1251 ± 67 0.09 ± 0.03 0.98 630 ± 36 0.05 ± 0.01 0.98
Benz(a)anthracene 318 ± 1 0.13 ± 0.03 1 128 ± 6 0.08 ± 0.02 0.99
Chrysene 256 ± 12 0.06 ± 0.01 0.99 113 ± 10 0.03 ± 0.01 0.96
Benzo(b+k)fluoranthene 192 ± 8 0.05 ± 0.01 0.99 92 ± 3 0.04 ± 0.01 0.99
Benzo(a)pyrene 368 ± 12 0.06 ± 0.01 0.99 160 ± 5 0.05 ± 0.01 0.99
Dibenz(ah)anthracene 58 ± 2 0.07 ± 0.01 0.99 32 ± 2 0.03 ± 0.01 0.99
Benzo(ghi)perylene 226 ± 6 0.06 ± 0.01 1 105 ± 5 0.05 ± 0.01 0.99
Indenopyrene 68 ± 2 0.05 ± 0.01 0.99 30 ± 2 0.03 ± 0.01 0.98
296 Z. Gong et al. / Chemosphere 58 (2005) 291–298

1400

1200
PAH concentration in soil

PAH removal (mg•kg-1)

1000 oil/soil ratio of 1:1
oil/soil ratio of 2:1
800

600

400

200

Ch ne

e
ne

ne
ne

ne

ne

ne
ne

ne

ne
ne

en
en

e
re

se
re

re

he

he
he

ac

le

re
re

ac
ac
th

y
uo

Py

py
py
y
hr

nt

nt
nt

hr

er
hr

r
an

a
ra

nt
Fl

no
a)

nt

i)p
nt

or

or
en

uo

)a

o(

)a

de
A

flu

flu

gh
Ph

(a

nz
Fl

a,h

In
nz

b)

k)

o(
Be

z(
o(

o(

nz
Be

en
nz

nz

Be
ib
Be

Be

D
Fig. 2. Comparison of PAH removals at oil/soil ratios of 1:1 and 2:1.

140
PAH remaining in oil (%)

120

100

80
60

40

20

0
e

e
e
ne
ne

e
en

en
ne

e
en

en
ne
ne

en

en
en

en
he
re

th

th
re

ac

yl
se
re

ac

r
ac

r
th

py
uo

an

an

py
nt

er
ry

hr
Py

hr
hr
an

ra

i)p
a)
Ch

or

or

nt
Fl

no
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uo
en

o(

)a
flu

flu

gh
)a

de
A

nz

ah
Ph

Fl

(a

b)

k)

o(

In
Be

z(
nz

o(

o(

nz
en
Be

nz

nz

Be
ib
Be

Be

Control
Treated with 20 g activated carbon
Treated with 10 g activated carbon

Fig. 3. Regeneration of PAH containing oil using activated carbon.

>0.1%, hydrophobic organic pollutant partitioning into from 30 to 0.00026 mg/l, and octanol–water coefficient
the soil organic material has been found to be the do- partition ranging from 3.37 to 7.66, respectively (Table
minant process (Magleod and Semple, 2000). Dissolu- 1). Given the wide range of PAH characteristics, the
tion of soil organic materials into sunflower oil will also analogous removal rates of PAHs can be ascribed to
result in the soil organic material bound PAHs being the good capacity of sunflower oil to extract PAHs from
dissolved into sunflower oil, which further enhances soil, thus, the influence of physicochemical characteris-
the capacity of sunflower oil to extract PAHs from the tics became less significant. It was demonstrated that
contaminated soil. the extractability of PAHs from soil decreased with pro-
Environmental behaviors of PAHs on historically longed aging of contamination (West and Harwell,
contaminated soils are complicated by the fact that 1992). The soil used in this study was collected from a
physicochemical properties of PAHs vary greatly. For former MGP site in Berlin, which had a decade-long
example, the PAHs commonly associated with MGP history of contamination. Thus, our method exhibits
sites range from two rings (naphthalene) to six rings promising rates and extents of PAH removal from aged
(indenopyrene), with associated water solubility ranging soils.
 Z. Gong et al. / Chemosphere 58 (2005) 291–298
The contamination at former gas plants is extremely
severe, therefore, land use other than industrial purposes
in these areas are always banned by the government or
impossible, and the quality of ground water near the
contaminated site is also threatened by PAH contami-
nants. The clean-up of heavily contaminated site using
sunflower oil can release the problems related to PAHs.
It is summarized in literature that major constituents of
vegetable oil are oleic acid, simple phenols and phenolic
acids, dicarboxylic acid, these acids are readily biode-
gradable. The degradability of remaining oil in soil
was investigated in a series of soil respiration experi-
ments. Our preliminary results (not shown) indicate that
remaining oil in soil can be removed by conventional
method, such as compost. The soil quality was remark-
ably improved after clean-up by sunflower oil as far as
ecological risk assessment was concerned. Although
the humic content and pore system of the soil were sac-
rificed, these two factors are less important for a non-
agricultural purpose.
Costs play an essential role in the applicability of
remediation techniques. At this moment it is impossible
to give an accurate and reliable cost estimation based
only on our batch experiments. However, our results
suggest that it is worthwhile to scale up the experiment
to further test this technology for in situ remediation
of PAH contaminated soil. A reliable estimate would
be available after a semi field experiment on a pilot plant
scale is completed.
5. Conclusions
The present study demonstrates a novel soil remedia-
tion method that uses sunflower oil to extract PAHs
from the contaminated soil. Results showed that sun-
flower oil had a good capability to extract PAHs from
soil, especially the MGP soil containing extremely high
concentrations of PAHs, which were difficult to remedi-
ate by other methodologies. Nearly 100% of PAHs were
removed in batch experiments. Kinetics of PAH dissolu-
tion showed that equilibrium could be achieved within
24 h for 3-ring PAHs, and that after 3 d, mass transfers
will be in an equilibrium condition for all the PAHs. Oil/
soil ratio did not have a significant influence on the re-
moval rates of PAHs in batch experiments. By fitting
the data to an empirical first-order model we derived
equilibrium concentrations of PAHs in oil and mass
transfer coefficients. These two parameters were quite
meaningful for the determination of effects of PAH
molecular weight, oil/soil ratio, and contact time on
the efficiency of PAH removals. The PAH containing
oil could be regenerated by adsorption of PAHs from
sunflower oil using activated carbon. Before this tech-
nique is applied to in situ or ex situ remediation on a full
scale, a thorough assessment should be made involving
297
costs and ecological risks related to the quality of sun-
flower oil, disposal of oil and activated carbon, the
transport of soil, refill of contaminated site, and so on.
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by a grant from
National Science Foundation of China (20277040) to
P.L., and a scholarship from BMBF of Germany
(CHN 093) to Z.G. We thank Dr. P. Isosaari for his
constructive advice on manuscript revision, Dr. P. Gong
for editing the manuscript.
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