Landfill Leachate Treatment Using Aerobic Granular Sludge
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 9
Abstract
This research investigated the treatment of landfill leachate using aerobic granular sludge (AGS). The AGS was cultivated from a lab-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR). Leachate was gradually fed into the aerobic granular sludge SBR (GSBR) by mixing it with primary effluent at ratios varying from 10 to 90%. Regardless of the different mixing ratios or high free-ammonia (FA) and free-nitrous-acid (FNA) concentrations in the influent, the GSBR demonstrated high total ammoniacal nitrogen (TAN) removal efficiency, which ranged from 95 to 100%. The best results were obtained when the total nitrogen (TN) load was ( of TAN in the influent), where the FA concentration was the lowest (). For a nitrogen load up to (i.e., TN and FA ), chemical oxygen demand (COD), TN, and phosphorus removal of GSBR were around 64, 42, and 84%, respectively. With the further increase in the nitrogen load, the TN, COD, and phosphorus removal rate of GSBR decreased significantly; however, the TAN removal efficiency remained constant at 90–100%. This study showed that the AGS is able to treat leachate with high concentrations of TAN (), and simultaneous nitrification and denitrification play a significant role in nitrogen removal. From these promising results, the use of AGS for leachate treatment should be encouraged.
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Acknowledgments
This research is funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC RGPIN-2014-05510). Fernanda M. Ferraz would like to thank CNPq—Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Grant No. 203208/2014-5) for a postdoctoral scholarship.
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 143 • Issue 9 • September 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 10, 2016
Accepted: Apr 24, 2017
Published online: Jun 1, 2017
Published in print: Sep 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Nov 1, 2017
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