The potential ability of microwave heating (MWH) for the remediation of marine sediments affected by severe hydrocarbon (HC) contamination was investigated. Decontamination effectiveness and environmental sustainability through a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) were addressed. Main results revealed that the application of a 650-W MWH treatment resulted in a rapid (15 min) HC removal. A citric acid (CA) dose of 0.1 M led to enhanced-HC removals of 76.9, 96.5 and 99.7% after 5, 10 and 15 min of MW irradiation, respectively. The increase in CA dose to 0.2 M resulted in a shorter successful remediation time of 10 min. The exponential kinetic model adopted showed a good correlation with the experimental data with R² values in the 0.913–0.987 range. The nature of the MW treatment was shown to differently influence the HC fraction concentration after the irradiation process. Achieved HC removals in such a short remediation time are hardly possible by other clean-up techniques, making the studied treatment a potential excellent choice. Removal mechanisms, which allowed the enhanced-MWH to operate as a highly effective multi-step technique (pure thermal desorption + chemical washing), undoubtedly represent a key factor in the whole remediation process. The LCA highlighted that the MW technology is the most environmentally sustainable alternative for sediment decontamination applications, with a total damage, which was 75.74% lower than that associated with the EK (0.0503 pt).

研究了微波加热（MWH）修复受严重碳氢化合物（HC）污染影响的海洋沉积物的潜在能力。通过比较生命周期评估（LCA）解决了净化效果和环境可持续性问题。主要结果表明，650 W MWH处理的应用导致了HC的快速去除（15分钟）。柠檬酸（CA）剂量为0.1 M，分别在MW照射5、10和15分钟后，HC去除率分别提高了76.9、96.5和99.7％。CA剂量增加至0.2 M导致成功修复的时间缩短了10分钟。所采用的指数动力学模型与R ²的实验数据显示出良好的相关性值在0.913–0.987范围内。结果表明，微波处理的性质会不同程度地影响辐照过程后的HC馏分浓度。在短短的修复时间内很难通过其他净化技术实现HC去除，这使得研究的治疗成为潜在的极佳选择。去除机制使增强的MWH可以作为高效的多步技术（纯热脱附+化学洗涤）运行，无疑代表了整个修复过程的关键因素。LCA强调，兆瓦技术是沉积物去污应用中对环境最可持续的替代方案，其总破坏率比EK（0.0503 pt）低75.74％。