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Design and annual operation of full scale landfill leachate plant in Iran: focus on multistage membrane technology

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Abstract

One of the major environmental issues is the large amount of municipal solid waste that accumulates at landfills and produces leachate as a complicated and contaminated effluent. Therefore, landfill leachate treatment has always been a challenge for government officials. In this research, a self-organization of chemical, biological and membrane processes have been proposed for landfill leachate treatment on a full-scale plant. It includes a coagulation/sedimentation unit in which polyaluminum chloride as a coagulant and sulfuric acid as pH adjustment in the acidic state were used to achieve the removal of COD, TSS and ammonia of 51%, 81% and 19%, respectively. Subsequently, the COD of leachate was reduced to 1334 mg/l by using the biological process of activated sludge, which led to the complete elimination of ammonia (99%). To complete the activated sludge process, two membrane bioreactors (MBR) were used in parallel with the average output flux of 18 LMH that increased the MLSS to 10,000 mg/l and removed 68% COD. The watery sludge produced in different parts was transferred to the sludge dewatering unit. Besides, for further treatment of the leachate, the effluent was transferred to the reverse osmosis (RO) unit. RO provided excellent colorless and high-quality output by reducing the effluent COD of the MBR system to 5 mg/l.

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Acknowledgements

This work is a result of a project supported by Babol Municipality that was designed and performed by Babol Noshirvani University of Technology in Anjilci, Babol. The authors acknowledge the official and spiritual support of the university research office.

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  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, Shariati Ave., P.O. Box 484, Babol, 47148-71167, Iran

    Nima Hosseinzadeh Yekani, Majid Peyravi, Mohsen Jahanshahi & Mohsen Bagheri

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  1. Nima Hosseinzadeh Yekani
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  2. Majid Peyravi
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  3. Mohsen Jahanshahi
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  4. Mohsen Bagheri
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Correspondence to Majid Peyravi or Mohsen Jahanshahi.

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Yekani, N.H., Peyravi, M., Jahanshahi, M. et al. Design and annual operation of full scale landfill leachate plant in Iran: focus on multistage membrane technology. Chem. Pap. 76, 4509–4521 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11696-022-02108-0

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