Review Remediation approaches for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) contaminated soils: Technological constraints, emerging trends and future directions Saranya Kuppusamy a, b, c, * , Palanisami Thavamani c, d , Kadiyala Venkateswarlu e , Yong Bok Lee a , Ravi Naidu b, c, d , Mallavarapu Megharaj b, c, d a Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, 52828, Republic of Korea b Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR), University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA5095, Australia c Cooperative Research Centre forContamination Assessment and Remediation of Environment (CRC CARE), PO Box 486, Salisbury South, SA5106, Australia d Global Centre for Environmental Remediation (GCER), Faculty of Science and InformationTechnology, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia e Formerly Department of Microbiology, Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur, 515055, India highlights graphical abstract  Summary of the extent and status of global PAHs contamination in soil.  Overview of established remediation approaches for PAHs and their costs.  Indication of emerging options for the cleanup of PAHs polluted sites.  Proposal of novel multifunctional green and sustainable cleanup sys- tems for future.  Focus only on the treatment of field soils and not spiked soils. article info Article history: Received 30 March 2016 Received in revised form 26 October 2016 Accepted 27 October 2016 Available online 4 November 2016 Handling Editor: X. Cao Keywords: PAHs Long-term contaminated soils Treatment technologies Biodegradation Field-scale remediation Future strategies abstract For more than a decade, the primary focus of environmental experts has been to adopt risk-based management approaches to cleanup PAH polluted sites that pose potentially destructive ecological consequences. This focus had led to the development of several physical, chemical, thermal and bio- logical technologies that are widely implementable. Established remedial options available for treating PAH contaminated soils are incineration, thermal conduction, solvent extraction/soil washing, chemical oxidation, bioaugmentation, biostimulation, phytoremediation, composting/biopiles and bioreactors. Integrating physico-chemical and biological technologies is also widely practiced for better cleanup of PAH contaminated soils. Electrokinetic remediation, vermiremediation and biocatalyst assisted reme- diation are still at the development stage. Though several treatment methods to remediate PAH polluted soils currently exist, a comprehensive overview of all the available remediation technologies to date is necessary so that the right technology for field-level success is chosen. The objective of this review is to provide a critical overview in this respect, focusing only on the treatment options available for field soils and ignoring the spiked ones. The authors also propose the development of novel multifunctional green and sustainable systems like mixed cell culture system, biosurfactant flushing, transgenic approaches and nanoremediation in order to overcome the existing soil- contaminant- and microbial-associated * Corresponding author. Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, 660 701, Republic of Korea. E-mail address: saran.miles2go@gmail.com (S. Kuppusamy). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemosphere journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2016.10.115 0045-6535/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Chemosphere 168 (2017) 944e968