Recovery of copper from contaminated soil by flushing

In this work the development of a process for the recovery of copper from contaminated industrial soils is presented. Experimental tests on a standard soil contaminated with a solution of copper chloride were carried out. The metal was extracted from the contaminated soil by flushing with a 0.1 M aqueous solution of an ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) sodium salt. A maximum copper extraction efficiency of about 60% was observed. Copper was then separated from the extracted solution by precipitation with sodium hydroxide after addition of ferric sulfate.