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LABORATORY STUDIES ON THE REMEDIATION OF MERCURY-CONTAMINATED SOILS
Citation:
Ray, A. AND A Selvakumar*. LABORATORY STUDIES ON THE REMEDIATION OF MERCURY-CONTAMINATED SOILS. Ronald Scrudato (ed.), Remediation Journal. John Wiley & Sons Incorporated, New York, NY, 10(4):49-56, (2000).
Impact/Purpose:
information
Description:
Mercury, in contrast to other toxic metals, cycles between the atmosphere, land, and water. During this cycle, it undergoes a series of complex chemical and physical transformations. Because of these transformations, it is found in the environment not only as simple inorganic and organic compounds, but also as complex compounds. As a result, it is difficult to remediate mercury contaminated materials. Laboratory studies were conducted with a mercury contaminated complex waste from an industrial site to evaluate the ability of extractants such as H2O2, H2SO4 and Na2S2O3 to decontaminate the waste. Up to 87 percent of the total mercury present in the waste was extracted. Mercury was recovered as insoluble mercury sulfide by adding Na2S solution to the combined filtrates from the H2O2 + H2SO4 and Na2S2O3 treatment steps. The technique described in this article is capable of recovering mercury in a usable form and can be used as a pretreatment to remediate mercury contaminated waste before laud disposal.
