Influence of the Mineralogical Composition of Contaminated Soils, Sediments and Technical Substrates on the Elution-and Extraction Behaviour of Heavy Metals and PAH

Abstract

The fact that the soil composition exerts substancial influence on the capacity of restraining pollutant of organic and inorganic compounds has been sufficiently described in literature. But there is no mention of the influence on an actual soil matrix and its behaviour according to the elution of heavy metals or extraction of the PAH and their measuring. Which components in mineral-and material-composition have the largest effect on the regaining rate? Active smectites and sorptive minerals as well as organic compounds in certain soils lead to detect less organic compounds compared to the actual contents. For example regaining rates of only 60% hydrocarbons can be determined in clayey soils. This can lead to false estimations during the investigation and evaluation of contaminated soils and its re-utilisation. Therefore the main point of investigation in one of the research projects sponsored by the Deutsche Bundestiftung Umwelt (DBU) was to proof the influence of individual material compositions for different substrates.