Solvent extraction of chromium and cadmium from contaminated soils

The most important result of this work is to show that water-insoluble chelators have the same yield at extracting metal ions from contaminated soils when they are dissolved in a mostly aqueous, non-toxic solvent solution (e.g. a 99% water-1% ethanol mixture), as when more toxic systems (e.g. a 50% water-50% acetone mixture) are used. In addition, the solvent solution can be composed mainly of water, with only a very small amount (1% in our case) of solvent added to dissolve the complexing agent. These results extend and generalize those previously presented by Mauri and coworkers.