Removal of hydrogen sulfide gas and landfill leachate treatment using coal bottom ash

Coal bottom ashes produced from three thermal power plants were used in column and batch experiments to investigate the adsorption capacity of the coal ash. Hydrogen sulfide and leachates collected from three sanitary landfill sites were used as adsorbate gas and solutions, respectively. Experimental results showed that coal bottom ash could remove H2S from waste gas or reduce the concentrations of various pollutants in the leachate. Each gram of bottom ash could remove up to 10.5 mg of H2S. In treating the landfill leachate, increasing ash dosage increased the removal efficiency but decreased the adsorption amount per unit mass of ash. For these tested ashes, the removal efficiencies of chemical oxygen demand (COD), NH3-N, total Kjeldhal nitrogen (TKN), P, Fe3+, Mn2+, and Zn2+ were 36.4-50, 24.2-39.4, 27.0-31.1, 82.2-92.9, 93.8-96.5, 93.7-95.4, and 80.5-82.2%, respectively; the highest adsorption capacities for those parameters were 3.5-5.6, 0.22-0.63, 0.36-0.45, 0.027-0.034, 0.050-0.053, 0.029-0.032, and 0.006 mg/g of bottom ash, respectively. The adsorption of pollutants in the leachate conformed to Freundlich's adsorption model.