There are numerous studies on the application of electrokinetic decontamination technique to remediate heavy metal contaminated fine grained soils. In recent studies, surfactants have been used to increase the efficiency of contaminant removal. However, there is limited data available on how physicochernical parameters such as zeta potential () of soils changes in the presence of surfactants. Understanding the potential variations of soils with surfactant addition is important because it controls the direction and magnitude of electro-osmotic permeability. which plays important role on the efficiency of electrokinetic remediation. In this study, zeta potentials of kaolinite, montmorillonite and quartz powder with Li+, Ca+2,CU+2, Pb+2 and Al+3 in the presence of anionic, cationic and non-ionic surfactants were determined. The results indicate that anionic surfactants produce negative potentials. The other surfactants produce both positive and negative potentials depending on soil type and ion present in the system. The results also indicate that the potential of kaolinite and quartz powder with surfactants showed similar trends; however, the absolute magnitude of the potential of quartz powder is higher than that of kaolinite. The potential of montmorillonite commonly shows a different trend from those of kaolinite and quartz powder. Based on the test results, it is recommended that potential of soils be determined before the electrokinetic decontamination in order to maximize the efficiency of the technique. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.