A comparative study on the efficiency of ozonation and coagulation-flocculation as pretreatment to activated carbon adsorption of biologically stabilized landfill leachate

The present work investigates the potential of coagulation-flocculation and ozonation to pretreat biologically stabilized landfill leachate before granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption. Both iron (III) chloride (FeCl3) and polyaluminium chloride (PACl) are investigated as coagulants. Better organic matter removal is observed when leachate was treated with FeCl3. At a dose of 1 mg FeCl3/mg COD0 (COD0: initial COD content), the COD and alpha(254) removal was 66% and 88%, respectively. Dosing 1 mg PACl/mg COD0 resulted in 44% COD and 72% alpha(254) removal. The settle-ability of sludge generated by PACl leveled off at 252 mL/g, while a better settle-ability of 154 mL/g was obtained for FeCl3 after dosing 1 mg coagulant/mg COD0. For ozonation, the percentage of COD and alpha(254) removal increased as the initial COD concentration decreased. Respectively 44% COD and 77% alpha(254) removal was observed at 112 mg COD/L compared to 5% COD and 26% alpha(254) removal at 1846 mg COD/L. Subsequent activated carbon adsorption of ozonated, coagulated and untreated leachate resulted in 77%, 53% and 8% total COD removal after treatment of 6 bed volumes. Clearly showing the benefit of treating the leachate before GAC adsorption. Mathematical modeling of the experimental GAC adsorption data with Thomas and Yoon-Nelson models show that ozonation increases the adsorption capacity and breakthrough time of GAC by a factor of 2.5 compared to coagulation flocculation. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.