This work was conducted on PAH-contaminated soil samples taken from the site of an old gas manufacturing site(Rhodia,Rogerville,France).Soilsampleshadthe following characteristics: pH 6.8, organic matter 7.93%, N content 0.21%, sand 63.7%, silt 22.8%, clay 13.5%, water holding capacity 40% (Pansu and Gautheyrou, 2003). This soilhadbeencontaminatedwithcoaltaroilandshoweda residual PAH contamination of about 0:8 g PAHs kg−1 soil (Table 1). The total content of 2-ring compounds was
low (¡ 1%), a re