Thermal treatment for the desorption of organic contaminants from marine sediments

Thermal treatments are widely used in the remediation of soil contaminated mainly by organic compounds. Thermal desorption, pyrolysis and incineration processes have been tested, due to their high efficiencies and the possibility to achieve a complete removal or immobilisation of pollutants. In this paper a process for the thermal remediation of contaminated harbour sediments is proposed . The process involves an initial pre-treatment step, dealing with the dehydration of the samples and/or the washing with an aqueous solution of hydrogen peroxide to verify the possibility of a simultaneous degradation of the pollutants molecules, to enhance the successive thermal treatment. Experimental tests of pyrolysis and incineration were performed with TGA and DTA analyses, to evaluate the effect of oxidant concentration on sediment COD and on pollutant degradation .