Assessment of electrophoresis and electroosmosis in construction materials: effect of enhancing electrolytes and heavy metals contamination

Electrokinetic effects are those that take place by application of an electric field to porous materials, with the zeta potential as the key parameter. Specifically, in the case of contaminated construction materials, the generation of an electroosmotic flux, with the corresponding dragging due to water transport, is a crucial mechanism to succeed in the treatment of decontamination. Therefore, it is of great interest trying to optimize the treatment by the addition of specific electrolytes enhancing the electrokinetic phenomena. Most of the data of zeta potential found in literature for construction materials are based in micro-electrophoresis measurements, which are quite far of the real conditions of application of the remediation treatments. In this paper, electrophoretic and electroosmotic experiments, with monolithic and powdered material respectively, have been carried out for mortar, brick and granite clean and contaminated with Cs, Sr, Co, Cd, Cu and Pb. The electrolytes tested have been distilled water (DW), Na2–EDTA, oxalic acid, acetic acid and citric acid. The zeta potential values have been determined through the two different techniques and the results compared and critically analysed