Selecting sustainable approach for remediation of PFOA contaminated soils: AHP decision-making 

Abstract

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which is an emerging persistent organic and one of the most commonly used PFAS, has a wide range of applications in industrial and production processes, and humans can regularly be exposed to it, so remediation of PFOA-contaminated soil is of great importance. This research presents the importance of PFOA soil pollution, soil remediation related technologies, their mechanisms and the order of remediation priority for three different hypothetical scenarios. Our comprehensive literature review shows that while some remediation methods have shown positive results, some, such as ultrasound, are ineffective in terrestrial ecosystems. Despite the fact that generally, the selection of a practical and compelling soil remediation technique depends on site assessments, our investigation and analysis by implementing an analytical hierarchy process and considering remediation time, environmental impacts, ecological impact, soil disturbance, post management, etc. as criteria, leads to the solidification/stabilization, oxidation, electrokinetic, phytoremediation and bioremediation as the most feasible and promising approaches for remediation of PFOA contaminated sites in our three suggested scenarios, but with different preferences. On the other hand, negative aspects of the electron beam, pulsed corona, and ball milling have placed them at the bottom of our selection list for field scale remediation.