Leaching of Pollutants from Refuse Beds

A procedure is presented for estimating theoretically the chemical quality of leachates from sanitary landfills. A theory of column chromatography was employed to determine the leaching of chloride during the movement of water through refuse beds. Generalized breakthrough curves given by Hiester and Vermeulen were used to obtain the theoretical chloride concentrations. Families of curves were then derived from experimental results, representing the ratios of various leaching materials to the theoretical chloride concentrations. A comparison of experimental and theoretical results shows good agreement. The method can be applied to the field study of existing landfills to determine the chemical composition of polluting liquid during the leaching process, if the cumulative precipitation, evaporation, evapotranspiration, runoff coefficients, and the depth of refuse beds are known.