Experimental study demonstrates enhanced PFAS extraction from contaminated soil using surfactant foam injection, highlighting an efficient remediation strategy for firefighting foam residues.
Aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) are extensively used in firefighting and are composed of a mixture of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including anionic, cationic, and zwitterionic compounds. Remediating soils contaminated by these emerging compounds is challenging due to their distinctive behavior in soil. This study investigates soil flushing methods using sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS) solutions at various levels of its critical micelle concentration (CMC) and foam (90% air, 10% SDBS) to extract PFAS from AFFF-contaminated soil. Batch desorption experiments showed that increasing SDBS concentration enhanced PFAS recovery through micellar solubilization. 1D-column experiments showed that foam injection improved PFAS recovery compared to SDBS, because of the mobile air-water interface (AWI). Foam sped up desorption kinetics for short-chain anionic PFAS and caused higher concentration overshoot for long-chain anionics as more CF 2 groups were present, as well as for non-anionic species, due to electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions at the AWI. Overall, foam injections achieved higher recovery rates: 100% for anionic, 90% for zwitterionic, and 66% for cationic PFAS.
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Batikh et al. (2026) studied this question.
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