General principle of physico-chemical treatment
Physico-chemical treatment: washing polluted soil

Soil is a physically and chemically complex system. Without going into detail about the diversity of soils, we can consider that it is made up of three components:

• solid mineral matter: in the form of grains, more or less cemented sheets or more or less fissured rock;

• liquids: mainly water;

• gases: mainly air.

Mineral matter is made up of inorganic and organic matter. Its structure contains pores or fissures filled with liquids or gases. Liquids are found in mineral matter in various forms: free, capillary, osmotic, adsorbed on particles or adsorbed in the crystalline structure of mineral matter. Voids not occupied by liquids contain air, organic matter degradation products and possibly volatile...