• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.62-70
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• 2009

A field soil highly contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons (JP-8 and diesel fuels) was employed for its remediation by a lab-scale thermal desorption process. The soil was collected in the vicinity of an underground storage tank in a closed military base and its contamination level was as high as 4,476 ppm as total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH). A lab scale directly-heated low temperature thermal desorption (LTTD) system of 10-L capacity was developed and operated for the thermal treatment of TPH contaminated soils in this study. The desired operation temperature was found to be approximately $200-300^{\circ}C$ from the thermal gravimetric analysis of the contaminated field soils. The removal efficiencies higher than 90% were achieved by the LTTD treatment at $200^{\circ}C$ for 10 min as well as at $300^{\circ}C$ for 5 min. As the water content in the soils increased and therefore they were likely to be present as lumps, the removal efficiency noticeably decreased, indicating that a pre-treatment such as field drying should be required. The analysis of physical and chemical properties of soils before and after the LTTD treatment demonstrated that no significant changes occurred during the thermal treatment, supporting no needs for additional post-treatments for the soils treated by LTTD. The results presented in this study are expected to provide useful information for the field application and verification of LTTD for the highly contaminated geo-environment.