I am thinking of possible ways of washing out/degrade/oxidize PAH in coal tar in order to decrease toxicity of product. What are the general ideas and approaches for that?
For coal tar and other sorptive materials it is really crucial to include sorption and desorption into the assessment and management of the PAHs. Sorption will be the governing process that determines how much of the PAHs will be accessible for e.g. bioremediation and gut uptake (main parameter: bioaccessibility or readily desorbring fraction). Sorption will also govern the partitioning of the PAHs from the coal tar to water and various organisms (main parameters: chemical activity, freely dissolved concentration). A rather typical scenario is that you initially can remove a high PAH fraction by several techniques including bioremediation, washing etc., but that it will be difficult if not impossible to remove the remaining PAH fraction. Fortunately, the remaining PAH fraction does typically not give rise to very high uptake and toxicity. The paper of Reichenberg et al from 2010 might be helpful, you can access it via research gate
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41760242_Low_accessibility_and_chemical_activity_of_PAHs_restrict_bioremediation_and_risk_of_exposure_in_a_manufactured_gas_plant_soil?ev=prf_pub
Article Low accessibility and chemical activity of PAHs restrict bio...
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