Chemical Treatments for Mobilizing Arsenic from Contaminated Aquifer Solids to Accelerate Remediation.

Arsenic is a prevalent contaminant at US Superfund sites where remediation by pump and treat systems is often complicated by slow desorption of As from Fe and Al (hydr)oxides in aquifer solids. Chemical amendments that either compete with As for sorption sites or dissolve Fe and Al (hydr)oxides can increase As mobility and improve pump and treat remediation efficiency. The goal of this work was to determine optimal amendments for improving pump and treat at As contaminated sites such as the Vineland Chemical Co. Superfund site in southern New Jersey. Extraction and column experiments were performed using As contaminated aquifer solids (81 ± 1 mg/kg), site groundwater, and either phosphate (NaH(2)PO(4)·H(2)O) or oxalic acid (C(2)H(2)O(4)·2H(2)O). In extraction experiments, phosphate mobilized between 11% and 94% of As from the aquifer solids depending on phosphate concentration and extraction time (1 mM-1 M; 1-24 h) and oxalic acid mobilized between 38 and 102% depending on oxalic acid concentration and extraction time (1-400 mM; 1-24 h). In column experiments, phosphate additions induced more As mobilization in the first few pore volumes but oxalic acid was more effective at mobilizing As overall and at lower amendment concentrations. At the end of the laboratory column experiments, 48% of As had been mobilized from the aquifer sediments with 100 mM phosphate and 88% had been mobilized with 10 mM oxalic acid compared with 5% with ambient groundwater alone. Furthermore, simple extrapolations based on pore volumes suggest that chemical treatments could lower the time necessary for clean up at the Vineland site from 600 a with ambient groundwater alone to potentially as little as 4 a with 10 mM oxalic acid.