Electrokinetic remediation of mercurycontaminated soil, from the mine El Alacran-San Jorge river basin, Cordoba- Colombia

Abstract

The aim of this work was to evaluate the electrokinetic technique for remediation of mercury contaminated soils from the mine El Alacrán, located in the San Jorge river basin from Colombian's Córdoba department. KI andNaCl solutions were used as complexing agents for removing mercury at two concentrations 0.01 M and 0.05 M, by applying voltages of 30 and 40 V respectively. The best results were obtained when KI was used as complexing agent, reaching percentages of recovery up to 98.7%. The treatments where NaCl was used as complexing agent not achieved significant recoveries (< 1%), except when was used a concentration of 0.05 M NaCl with an applied voltage of 40 V reaching a recovery of 38%. In all experiments, the mercury moved towards the anode due to complexation of anionic nature complex and was observed that increasing concentrations and voltages a more efficient and speedy removal of mercury in the soil was achieved. The results showed that the iodide has properties that make it a promising electrolyte solution for theremoval of mercury in the soil.