An investigation into the role of treatment performance and soil characteristics of soil-based wastewater treatment systems

Soil-based onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) are becoming more important for the treatment and disposal of wastewater in areas that have not central wastewater collection and treatment systems. However, there are concerns that OWTS may have adverse effects on public health and environment. The purpose of this study is to treat wastewater with using natural soil column in order to evaluate treatment system performance. Wastewater was applied to two different natural soils at different flow rates of 9, 18 and 36 L/day. The treatment performances of wastewater and geotechnical properties of the natural soils were examined. As a result of this study, the percentage of COD and SS removal in wastewater after soil column filtration were range from 36.2% to 80.5% and 84.4% to 97.9% respectively. pH values of wastewater after the filtration were measured between 7.75 and 8.12. TP and TN removal rates were found in the range of 23.9–76.8% and 12.4–83.0%, respectively. The column effluent water were classified as both ‘high hardness class’ in terms of hardness and ‘polluted water’ in terms of conductivity. Column effluent water were found in ‘low, medium, and high hazard’ classes in terms of SAR. Whereas the PL values of the natural soils were found to increase by up to 4.8% in filtration area, specific gravity decrease nearly 1.1%. The values of LL, PI, maximum dry density, optimum water content, and permeability were changed depending on the soil type. The UCS of the natural soils after wastewater filtration decreased by about 5.9%. It was concluded that natural soils have positive effects on treatment of wastewater in short time.

A Review of Sand–Clay Mixture and Soil–Structure Interface Direct Shear Test

Natural soils are usually heterogeneous and characterized with complex microstructures. Sand–clay mixtures are often used as simplified soils to investigate the mechanical properties of soils with various compositions (from clayey to sandy soils) in the laboratory. Performing laboratory tests on a sand–clay mixture with definite clay fraction can provide information to understand the simplified soils’ mechanical behavior and better predict natural soils’ behavior at the engineering scale. This paper reviews previous investigations on sand–clay mixture and soil–structure interface direct shear test. It finds that even though there are many investigations on sand–clay mixtures and soil–structure interfaces that consider pure sand or pure clay, limited data on the mechanical behavior of the interface between sand–clay mixture and structure materials are available. Knowledge is missing on how the clay content influences the mechanical behavior of interface and how the soil particles’ arrangement changes as the clay content increases. Further study should be performed to investigate the interface in terms of a reconstituted sand–clay mixture and structure by interface direct shear test, to highlight the influence of clay fraction on the interface response, under various loading conditions.

Uranium Decontamination from Waste Soils by Chlorination with ZrCl4 in LiCl-KCl Eutectic Salt

The dissolution behavior of U, contained in the soils, was examined through chlorination with ZrCl4 to reduce the U concentration to clearance levels. Natural soils, composed of Si, Al, and approximately 2 ppm U, acted as surrogates for the contaminated soils. A salt mixture of LiCl-KCl-ZrCl4 was prepared in an Al2O3 crucible at 500°C, and SiO2 or natural soils were loaded for the chemical reactions. The reaction of SiO2 and Al2O3 with ZrCl4 was monitored by cyclic voltammetry, and no obvious change was observed. The results showed that SiO2 and Al2O3 were stable against ZrCl4. The reaction of natural soils with ZrCl4 indicated that the U content decreased from 2 to 1.2 ppm, while ∼0.4 ppm U appeared in the salt. Thus, the U, in the soils, dissolved into the salt by chlorination with ZrCl4. Therefore, based on these results, a new method to remediate U-contaminated soil wastes by chlorination with ZrCl4, followed by electrorefining of U, is suggested.