Abstract
In this study, environmental investigations were conducted on the leachate collected from Al-Sulaibiya landfill site, Kuwait, to evaluate the leachate quality and treatment using aerobic/anoxic biological reactors in order to determine the degradation of organics and transformation of nitrogen. Results obtained show that leachate has high organic strength as expressed by its BOD and COD and high solids content. The COD average concentrations ranged from 795 mg/l to 1962 mg/l and the TDS maximum concentration was 23845 mg/l. The Aerobic/Anoxic (A/A) treatment of leachate in a semi-continuous reactor showed that the organic solids removal is generally high. After 30 days, 93% removal of COD was achieved. Nitrogen transformations by the nitrification and dentrification processes were observed, but the latter process progressed at a lower rate. The NO3 - concentration in the reactor decreased from a maximum value of 750 mg NO3-N/L to a minimum of 300 mg NO3-N /L in 20 days. The effluent quality from the A/A digestion system has generally been excellent for COD, solids, and ammonia concentrations. Biodegradation of organics followed a first-order kinetic pattern.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Agdag, O. N. & Sponza, D. T. 2008. Sequential anaerobic, aerobic/anoxic treatment of simulated landfill leachate. Environmental Technology, 29 (2): 183–197.
Al-Ghusain, I.A., Hamoda, M.F. & Abdel-Ghani, M. 2004. “Performance evaluation of aerobic/anoxic sludge digestion at elevated temperatures.” Environmental Technology, 25 (5): 501–511.
Al-Muzaini, S. & Muslamani, K. 1994. “Study of the environmental pollution from landfill sites receiving wastes generated during the Iraqi occupation.” Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Report No. KISR 4451; Kuwait.
Al-Senafy, M., Fadelelmawla, A., Al-Fahad, K., Al-Khalid, A. & Al-Yaqout, A. 2003. “Evaluation of the potential impact of selected municipal landfills on groundwater quality in Kuwait.” Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait, November.
Al-Yaqout, A. & Hamoda, M. F. 2003. ”Evaluation of landfill leachate in arid climate- A Case Study.” Environment International, 29 : 593–600.
Al-Yaqout, A.F. & Townsend, F. 2001. “Strategy for landfill design in arid regions.” Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic and Radioactive Waste Management, 5 (1) : 2–13.
APHA, 1998. Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 19th Edition, American Public Health Association, Washington DC, USA.
Calli, B., Bulent Mertoglu, Ayten Davutluoglu, Beyza Gunes, Emine Girgin, Nelihan Tas Bulent Inanc & Orhan Yenigun, 2002. ”Anaerobic treatment of high ammonia landfill leachate with and without pH control.” Appropriate Environmental and Solid Waste Management and Technologies for Developing Countries, 2 : 931–938.
Cheng, S. S., Wang, J. J. & Chen, S. K. 1997. Combined process of anoxic denitrification and aerobic nitrification treating sanitary landfill leachate. Journal of Chinese Institute Environmental Engineering, 7 (4): 397–404.
Cortez, S., Teixeira, P., Oliveira, R., & Mota, M., 2011. Mature landfill leachate treatment by denitrification and ozonation. Process Biochemistry, 46 (1): 148–153.
Fikret, K.F. & Pamukoglu, M.Y. 2003. Aerobic biological treatment of pre-treated leachate by fed-batch operation. Enzym Microb Technology, 33 : 588–595.
Govahi, S., Karim-Jashni, A. & Derakhshan, M. 2012. Treatability of landfill leachate by combined upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor and aerated lagoon. International Journal of Environment Science and Technology, 9 (1): 145–151.
Gulsen, H. & Turan, M. 2004. Treatment of sanitary landfill leachate using a combined anaerobic fluidized bed reactor and Fenton’s oxidation. Environmental Engineering Science, 21(5) : 627–636.
Guo, J. S., Abbas, A. A., Chen, Y. P., Liu, Z. P., Fang, F. & Chen, P. 2010. Treatment of landfill leachate using a combined stripping, Fenton, SBR, and coagulation process. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 178 (1): 699–705.
Hamoda, M. F., Attia, N. F. & Al-Ghussain, I. A. 2014. Performance evaluation of a wastewater reclamation plant using ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. Desalination and Water Treatment, 53 : 1–11.
Henry, J. G. & Heinke, G. W. 1989. Environmental science and engineering, Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
Henry, J. G. & Prasad, D. 2000. Anaerobic treatment of landfill leachate by sulfate reduction. Water Science and Technology, 41 (3): 239–246.
Inanc, B., Calh, B. & Saatci, A. 2000. Characterization and anaerobic treatment of the sanitary landfill leachate in Istanbul. Water, Science and Technology, 41: 223–230.
Kabdasli, Ozturk, I., Tunay, O., Yilmaz, S. & Arikan, O. 2000. “Ammonia removal from young landfill leachate by magnesium ammonium phosphate precipitation and air stripping” Water Science and Technology, 41 (1) : 237–240.
Marttinen, S.K., Kettunen, R.H., Sormunen, K.M., Soimauo, R.M. & Rintala, J. A. 2002. Screening of physical-chemical methods for removal of organic material, nitrogen and toxicity from low strength landfill leachates. Chemosphere 46 (6): 851–858.
McBean, E. A., Rovers, F. A. & Farquhar, G. J., 1995. Solid waste landfill engineering and design. prentice hall PTR, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Safferman, S. I., & Bhattacharya, S. K. 1990. Treatability of RCRA compounds in a BOD/Nitrification wastewater treatment system with dual media filtration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency EPA-600/52-90/013, Cincinnati, Ohio, August.
Park, S., Choi, K.S., Joe, K.S., Kim, W.H. & Kim, H.S. 2001. Variations of landfill leachate’s properties in conjunction with the treatment process. Environment Technology 22 : 639–645.
Tchobanoglous, G., Theisen, H. & Vigil, S. 1993. Integrated solid waste management: engineering principles and management issues. McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, NY.
Timur, H. & Ozturk, I., 1997. “Anaerobic treatment of leachate using sequencing batch reactor and hybrid filter”. Water Science and Technology, 36 (6–7) : 501–508.
Trabelsi, I., Sellami, I., Dhifallah, T., Medhioub, K., Bousselmi, L, & Ghrabi, A. 2009. Coupling of anoxic and aerobic biological treatment of landfill leachate. Desalination, 246 (1) : 506–513.
Vilar, V. J. P., Rocha, E. M. R., Mota, F. S., Fonseca, A., Saraiva, I. & Boaventura, R. A. R. 2011. Treatment of a sanitary landfill leachate using combined solar photo-Fenton and biological immobilized biomass reactor at a pilot scale. Water Research, 45 (8) : 2647–2658.
Wang, F., Smith, D. W. & El-Din, M. G. 2003 Application of advanced oxidation methods for landfill leachate treatment-A review. Journal of Environmental Engineering and Science, 2 (6) : 413–427.
Yang, Z. & Zhou, S. 2008. The biological treatment of landfill leachate using a simultaneous aerobic and anaerobic (SAA) bio-reactor system. Chemosphere, 72(11): 1751–1756.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Civil Engineering Department, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat – 13060, Kuwait. E-mail: aalyaqout@yahoo.com
Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0) which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Al Yaqout, A. Aerobic /Anoxic treatment of leachate from an active unlined landfill site: A case study. J Engin Res 3, 20 (2015). https://doi.org/10.7603/s40632-015-0020-9
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7603/s40632-015-0020-9