Microemulsões a base de óleos vegetais: formação, propriedades e emprego na descontaminação EX-SITU de Solo / Vegetable oil-based microemulsions: formation, properties and application for "exsitu" soil decontamination

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2000

RESUMO

In the present project, we were interested in assessing the use of Brazilian vegetable oils in the "ex-situ" decontamination of soils from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In this process, contaminated soil is treated with a microemulsion (µE) composed of water (W) /commercial non-ionic surfactant (S) C9/11EO4 /oil (O). The latter term refers to the methyl esters of coconut oil (CME), babaçu oil (BME), and the saturated (SME), and unsaturated (LME) fractions of palm oil. Phase diagram of the above mentioned systems were studied. We used weight fractions, ? = (O / W + O) e ? = (S / S + W + O). The pseudo-ternary systems were then studied as a function of temperature, at different ? (? constant) and ? (? constant). The phase diagrams were qualitatively similar to those previously obtained for systems of water/alkane/homogeneous non-ionic surfactant. These show the so-called "fish" type phase diagram. The fish "body" is triphasic whereas its "tails" is monophasic and isotropic. Both areas meet at the so-called hydrophilic-lipophilic temperature, THLB (Schubert and Kaler, 1996). The following are the main differences between the vegetable oil-based phase diagrams and those of homogeneous component systems: a) The fish diagram is severely skewed upward, and its body area is much reduced; b) In the temperature versus ? channel" phase diagram; the monophasic region exists only at ? equal or above 0.5. The microstructures of the monophasic regions were studied by rheology, X ray diffraction, and quasi-elastic light scattering, QELS. The low viscosity and Newtonian behavior of these liquids shows that they do not contain cubic liquid crystals. This conclusion was corroborated by X ray diffraction measurements, which did not show diffraction patterns characteristic of systems of long-range structural order. The diffusion coefficients of the species involved were measured with QELS. These indicated that monophasic solutions are composed of bicontinuous and W/O microemulsions, whose THLB, is 37.5 ºC for CME, BME, and 42.5 ºC for SME and LME, respectively. The structure of the µE employed, µE/soil ratio, and contact time are important extraction variables. The amount of the µE should be sufficient to wet the surface of the soil, without causing PAHs redeposition. The optimum ratio was 6. Bicontinuous µEs were more efficient decontaminators than W/O microemulsions probably because they desorb PAH from soil by decreasing the associated interfacial tension. Decontamination by the former µEs was 35% more efficient than by hot toluene (6 hours, Soxhlet). After decontamination, the soil was washed with water, and its bioavailability assessed by measuring its charge density. Relative to the original soil, the charge density of decontaminated soil increased by 63%, 86%, 100% and 162%, for washed samples, which were decontaminated with µEs of CME, SME, LME and BME, respectively (µEs BI; ? = 0.5 e ? = 0.3).

ASSUNTO(S)

descontaninação de solo anphiphilic surface phenomena anfifílico fenômenos de superfície micelle decontamination of soils micela

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