Treatment of Lead Contaminated Soil using Solidification/Stabilization Method Incorporated with Sugarcane Bagasse

In recent years, tremendous researches have been carried out for solid waste treatment using the solidification/stabilization (S/S) method incorporated with agricultural wastes after the incineration process. These researches, although they showed efficient results, but they may be expensive due to the incineration procedure cost. In the current research, the treatment of lead (Pb) contaminated soil was studied by the incorporation of sugarcane bagasse in its fibrous state into the S/S method. Chemical properties of the materials used were determined by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) test. Some mechanical tests like density, water absorption and compressive strength were conducted in order to meet the regulatory limits for disposing the treated waste. Some leaching tests were also conducted, to measure the leachability of lead (Pb) from the matrices. Solidification/stabilization was found as an effective method that was able to reduce more than 99% of leachability of Pb from polluted soil. Moreover, this method can incorporate until 10% of sugarcane bagasse into the matrices. Although incorporation of sugarcane bagasse up to 10% decreases the strength of the samples and increase the leachability of Pb, but they still fit to the standard. Incorporation of sugarcane bagasse waste in its fibrous state into the solidification/stabilization method may provide an alternative low cost treatment method for Pb polluted soils and may eliminate huge amounts of this waste from the environment.