Title: Primary treatment of anaerobic landfill leachate using activated carbon and limestone: batch and column studies

Authors: Ahmed Abu Foul, Hamidi Abdul Aziz, Mohamed Hasnain Isa, Yung-Tse Hung

Addresses: School of Civil Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia. ' School of Civil Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia. ' Civil Engineeiring Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia. ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cleveland State University, 2121 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44115, USA

Abstract: Leachate generated from an old landfill in Taiping, Perak, Malaysia contains high colour, COD, iron and ammoniacal nitrogen. Activated carbon–limestone mixture was used as a primary treatment process. More than 86% of colour and COD, 95% of iron, and 48% of ammoniacal nitrogen were removed by a mixture of activated carbon and limestone (15:25 by volume) in the batch study compared with 70, 80 and 90% respectively, by column study on the first five days. Both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms had fitted well with the experimental data. The adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-second-order model indicating that chemisorption or ion exchange was the rate-controlling step in the adsorption.

Keywords: adsorption kinetics; limestone; activated carbon; anaerobic landfill; leachate treatment; colour removal; iron removal; COD removal; chemical oxygen demand; nitrogen removal; ammoniacal nitrogen; old landfills; landfill leachate; Malaysia; chemisorption; ion exchange.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEWM.2009.027397

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, 2009 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.282 - 298

Published online: 22 Jul 2009 *

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