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an official journal of: published by:
Editor in Chief: RAFFAELLO COSSU

AEROBIC BIOLOGICAL TREATABILITY STUDIES ON LANDFILL LEACHATE WITH NITRIFICATION AND DENITRIFICATION

  • Tim Robinson - Phoenix House, Phoenix Engineering, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Released under CC BY-NC-ND

Copyright: © 2019 CISA Publisher


Abstract

Large pilot-scale treatment trials have examined the treatment of a leachate typical of those found at many closed landfill sites, containing approximately 200mg/l of ammoniacal-N. At such sites, treatment of these leachates with nitrification of ammoniacal-N alone, will not allow discharges of treated leachate to be made into sensitive surface watercourses, because of concerns about nitrate-N. The trials therefore included denitrification processes, by modification of an SBR process configuration, using the waste product glycerol, widely available as a by-product from the production of biodiesel, as the carbon source for denitrification. Initially a nitrification-only Stage 1 treatment trial treated strong, methanogenic leachate containing 2000mg/l of ammoniacal-N and 4000mg/l COD, completely nitrifying all ammoniacal-N to nitrate-N. Following the successful treatment of strong leachate through nitrification, the innovative combined nitrification and denitrification treatment system was constructed. Stage 2 of the treatability trial used this newly designed system to incorporate both aeration and anoxic phases within a single reactor; enabling full nitrification and denitrification of weaker leachate from a closed landfill, containing 150mg/l ammoniacal-N and 200mg/l COD. In particular, the development of an innovative, stable, robust and relatively simple combined nitrification and denitrification process will have wide application at many closed landfill sites, where a reliable and robust treatment process is required, whilst full denitrification of nitrate-N is essential if treated leachate is to be discharged locally into small watercourses. The relative simplicity of the new process, in a single tank, with readily-automated operation and few chemical additions, means that it can be used at remote closed landfills, to produce high quality effluents suitable for discharge into many surface watercourses.

Keywords


Editorial History

  • Received: 01 Mar 2019
  • Revised: 07 Jun 2019
  • Accepted: 02 Jul 2019
  • Available online: 01 Aug 2019

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