ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Soil Processes
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1646182
This article is part of the Research TopicSustainable Solutions for Soil Contamination and Sludge Management: Advances in Geoenvironmental EngineeringView all articles
Study on the effect of using multi-round citric acid bottom vacuum leaching to remediate Cu, Zn-contaminated soil
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai Yaxin Urban Construction Co., Ltd, Shanhai, China
- 2Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
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The bottom vacuum-enhanced leaching technology is an effective method for repairing lowpermeability polluted soil. To evaluate the effect of leaching cycles on copper-zinc contaminated soil after vacuum leaching remediation, three rounds of citric acid bottom vacuum leaching model experiments were carried out. Through one-dimensional compression tests and microscopic experiments, the changes and mechanisms in heavy metal removal efficiency, consolidation compression characteristics, and microscopic characteristics of polluted soil under different leaching rounds were revealed. The results indicated that the number of leaching rounds had a significant impact on the heavy metal removal rate and soil properties of polluted soil. As the leaching rounds increased, the removal rate of copper-zinc heavy metals, porosity, permeability coefficient, and consolidation coefficient all significantly improved. The particle size of soil particles gradually decreased. Microscopically, with the increase of leaching rounds, soil samples exhibited a looser structure, and the corrosive effect of citric acid on soil was enhanced, which led to larger pores and an increase in pore ratio. Meanwhile, the dispersed pore structure further increased the permeability and consolidation coefficients. The research provided a theoretical basis and technical reference for promoting bottom vacuum leaching remediation technology and evaluating the soil's geotechnical engineering properties after remediation.
Keywords: Contaminated soil1, Bottom vacuum leaching2, Leaching rounds3, Microscopic test4, Consolidation test5
Received: 18 Jun 2025; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zang, Zhang and Yue. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yanran Zhang, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
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