Laboratory Scale and Pilot Study of the Treatment of Municipal Landfill Leachate

N. Černila Zajc, M. Glancer, M. Grömping and V. Šoljan

Abstract
The aim of the study was to investigate the use of the biological treatment with activated sludge (with a native and specially selected mixed culture of microorganisms) coupled with physical and chemical adsorption on activated carbon (GAC) for leachate from municipal landfills. The major goal was to evaluate the process performance and determine the nitrification and denitrification efficiency and reduction of organic pollutants. With the biological process good and stable nitrification efficiency of up to 99 % was achieved, while the organic carbon removal and denitrification efficiency was quite low (30 % of COD and Ntot reduction on average). With adsorption on activated carbon, carbonaceous removal efficiency was quite good and stable up to 75 %. We can conclude that the combination of the biological treatment followed by adsorption on activated carbon can meet the legal requirements for treated effluent quality.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Keywords
landfill leachate, nitrification, denitrification, activated carbon adsorption, selected microorganisms