Physical Treatment Technologies for Landfill Leachate: Performance and Limitation

Abstract

Landfill leachate is a refractory wastewater and highly polluted with heterogeneous materials which is harmful to the environment and living organisms. Thus, leachate requires efficient treatment system to ensure the quality of final discharge is within the standard limit. Moreover the treatment process must be cost effective in order to be accepted. Many treatment processes were examined for leachate treatment including biological, chemical and physical process. This chapter discuss the treatability of leachate using physical processes such as evaporation, flotation, adsorption, membrane, ultrasonication, air stripping. It can be concluded that physical processes are not recommended to stand alone for leachate treatment. Nevertheless, adsorption and membrane technologies are very effective for post treatment of leachate. Aeration, sedimentation, evaporation, and sonication can be used effectively as pre-treatment processes.