A new approach for remediation of As-contaminated soil: ball mill-based technique

In this study, a physical ball mill process instead of chemical extraction using toxic chemical agents was applied to remove arsenic (As) from contaminated soil. A statistical analysis was carried out to establish the optimal conditions for ball mill processing. As a result of the statistical analysis, approximately 70 % of As was removed from the soil at the following conditions: 5 min, 1.0 cm, 10 rpm, and 5 % of operating time, media size, rotational velocity, and soil loading conditions, respectively. A significant amount of As remained in the grinded fine soil after ball mill processing while more than 90 % of soil has the original properties to be reused or recycled. As a result, the ball mill process could remove the metals bound strongly to the surface of soil by the surface grinding, which could be applied as a pretreatment before application of chemical extraction to reduce the load.