Laboratory Experiments to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Persulfate to Oxidize BTEX in Saline Environment and at Elevated Temperature Using Stable Isotopes

In this study, batch experiments were carried out to investigate the effectiveness of persulfate (PS) as an oxidant agent to remediate benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) in saline environments and at high water temperatures (30 °C). This hydrological setting is quite common in contaminated groundwater aquifers in Middle Eastern countries. In general, increasing the system temperature from 10 to 30 °C greatly enhanced the effectiveness of PS, and resulted in a faster oxidation rate for the target contaminants. When PS was added to the reactor at 30 °C, the targeted contaminants were almost completely oxidized over a 98-day reaction period. During the chemical oxidation of the BTEX, carbon and hydrogen isotope fractionations were monitored and utilized as potential proof of contaminant degradation. The calculated carbon-enrichment values were −1.9‰ for benzene, −1.5‰ for ethylbenzene and toluene, −0.4‰ for ρ,m-xylene, and −1.4‰ for o-xylene, while the hydrogen enrichment values were −9.5‰, −6.8‰, −2.1‰, −6.9‰, and −9.1‰, respectively. In comparison with other processes, the hydrogen and carbon isotope fractionations during the chemical oxidation by PS were smaller than the isotope fractionations resulting from sulfate reduction and denitrification. This observation demonstrates the differences in the transformation pathways and isotope fractionations when compounds undergo chemical oxidation or biodegradation. The distinct trend observed on the dual isotope plot (Δδ13C vs. Δδ2H) suggests that compound-specific isotope analysis can be utilized to monitor the chemical oxidation of BTEX by PS, and to distinguish treatment zones where PS and biodegradation technologies are applied simultaneously.