Since the early 1970's, the most widely used preservative in the wood preservation industry has been chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treatment. Current estimations suggest that there may be as much as 240 million tons of CCA wood waste available for Disposal by the year 2020.

Until recently, landfilling the out of service materials was a generally accepted method of disposal. Recently, problems with soil and groundwater contamination have arisen, and the role of CCA impregnated wood waste in the matter has been confirmed. As a result, the need for an efficient and effective method of heavy metal separation form wood waste has become eminent.

The focus of this research is to recover the energy value from the wood while offering a recycling opportunity for the CCA components of the wood. In this research, electrokinetic treatment of CCA impregnated wood was examined. CCA treated wood was subjected to chemical pretreatment followed by electrokinetic (EK) extraction. While the results of the preliminary research have previously been presented this research has been completed. In this set of tests CCA wood was treated in a sawdust form, in a wood chip form, and as intact wood sticks simulating CCA treated power poles. Result show that chemical pretreatment is an effective method for increasing the extractability of CCA using EK. Results indicate that up to 95% of the CCA for the sawdust material could be removed. EK treatment of the intact sticks was less effective only removing 75% of the CCA.

This paper will present the finding of this research. Emphasis will be placed on the possibility of full scale application of the EK process.