Abstract: Remediation of contaminated soil/sediment is extremely important for improving eco-environmental health. By applying electric field to contaminated soil/sediment, pollutants can be migrated, enriched and removed. In this paper the history of electro-kinetic remediation research is reviewed, and the mechanisms of electro-kinetic remediating heavy metals, organic pollutants and compound pollutants are compared. The performances of soil pretreatment (adding acid,oxidant,co-solvent and surfactant, stirring, and heating), electrode optimization (exchange electrode, anode approximation, and electrode matrix), multi-technology combination (EK-PRB,Fenton,IEM,ASC,ultrasonic,electrolyte enhancement) in optimizing the single electro-kinetic remediation are also examined. In general, the incomplete separation of pollutants, the change in soil/sediment’s microstructure as well as physical-chemical properties, and the difficulty of large-scale in-situ application have restrained the engineering application of electro-kinetic in remediating contaminated soil/sediment. To tackle such technical challenges, an integrated electro-kinetic remediation technology involving in-situ pollutant separation, separated contaminant treatment, and valuable resource recovery is proposed. The proposed technology could solve the problem of damage to soil ecology and overcome the difficulty of pollutant drainage.

Key words: soil/sediment pollution, electro-kinetic remediation, pretreatment, electrode optimization, pollutant in situ separation, research progress