Surfactant Washing to Remove Heavy Metal Pollution in Soil: A Review

Heavy metal pollution has pervaded many parts of the world, especially developing countries such as China. The discharge of wastewater containing heavy metals will cause soil pollution for a long time and harm to human health. Soil washing is an environmentally feasible and cost-effective approach for the clean-up of sites contaminated with heavy metals. As a relatively environmental protection agent, surfactants are widely used in soil washing. This paper generalized the methods of remediation of soil from heavy metals, expounded the mechanisms of soil washing by surfactant and the types of surfactants and summarized the application of different surfactants in washing heavy metals from soil. Finally, the application prospects and development trends of surfactant washing heavy metals from soil have been prospected.