A natural organic soil (2.5% of total organic carbon) was artificially contaminated with hexadecane, and thermally treated under an inert medium up to different final temperatures (150-800 degrees C) for 30 min to simulate ex situ thermal process conditions. The experiments were conducted using a complete organic soil, instead of the clays or isolated soil fractions that are commonly used. Neat and contaminated samples were separately heated to understand the impact of the soil itself and the contaminant in the release of volatiles. The soil quality as well as the quality and amount of volatile compounds generated during the process were monitored. More than 80-88% of the initial hexadecane content in the soil matrix was recovered in liquids traps after the thermal treatment, therefore the contaminant could be recovered for further recycling. The high amount of hexadecane collected without suffering chemical transformations indicated that the main mechanism for the hexadecane removal was evaporation. The analysis of the light gases released from contaminated samples indicated negligible or null hexadecane pyrolysis reaction rates, confirming that the evaporation/desorption of the contaminant are the processes that governed the removal of the contaminant from the soil. For the soil tested, of a relatively low surface area, good removal efficiencies (higher than 99.9%) were detected at about 300 degrees C, being higher temperatures not necessary to significantly improve the contamination removal. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.