Elsevier

Environmental Technology & Innovation

Volume 9, February 2018, Pages 134-139
Environmental Technology & Innovation

Comparative study of different Biological Processes for non-segregated Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) leachate treatment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eti.2017.11.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Analysis of three different biological treatment process on various aspects which covers pH, BOD, COD, TDS, color, oil and grease.

  • PVA gel is an efficient technology for the MSW leachate treatment.

  • Pilot scale study to identify best biological process for non segregated MSW leachate treatment.

  • An efficient and cost effective Leachate treatment a need of time to save environmental pollution.

Abstract

In developing countries, leachate generation from open dumpsites poses a severe impact on health as well as on environment. There is an urgent need to nullify the effect of the leachate before it starts contaminating to water resources. The current study was designed to explore the biological method for the treatment of leachate and utilization of best treatment method at the industrial scale. This study was carried out at Municipal Solid Waste based 12 MW Waste-to-Energy Plant in Ghazipur, eastern part of Delhi, India. The chemically and anaerobically treated leachate samples were simultaneously subjected to three different treatment processes in isolation. The effect of different treatments (suspended growth with Activated Sludge Process; attached growth with Fixed Film; and combined treatment with Polyvinyl Alcohol Gel media) were analyzed. Experiential data were generated and analyzed and it revealed that of the three different processes tested on Indian MSW-leachate the efficiency of PVA Gel media was higher as compare to the other three methods. Analysis also showed that when PVA Gel process was clubbed with the conventional biological method, for large (industrial) scale application it resulted in lower CAPEX and OPEX.

Introduction

The latest survey conducted by World Health Organization showed water tension is the one of the possible problem as 1.1 billion people from all over world lack improved water facility and 2.4 billion people are deficient in improved sanitation facility (Annette et al., 2008). Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) is a prominent environment issue of Indian cities as in India landfills are large open dumping grounds without top cover and bottom impermeable layers, where hazardous, industrial and even biomedical wastes are dumped improperly. Survey showed the about 90% of MSW is disposed of untreated in open dumps and landfills which is hazardous to inhabitants (Sharholy et al., 2008).

As per the latest guidelines for Solid Waste Management (SWM), released by the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India, on April 2016, defines leachates as the liquid that seeps through solid waste or other medium and has extracts of dissolved or suspended materials from it (MoEF, 2016). Landfill leachate is the highly complex and toxic waste water that displays substantial variations in composition and volumetric flow. Typically, it contains toxic matter, suspended solids or other dissolved components assimilated from the dumped waste (Kumar et al., 2013). It also contains heavy metals, salts, nitrogen compounds and various types of organic materials (Keenan et al., 1984). This polluted waste water poses a serious threat to the surrounding ecosystem, it often (Bhalla et al., 2014) percolates down and contaminates the groundwater and runs as a stream into the surrounding water bodies. In India, the treatment and disposal processes for leachate are a cause of concern particularly due to the high values of total suspended solids, inorganic salts, organic contaminants, high ammonia concentration, halogenated hydrocarbons and heavy metals Kumar et al. (2013), Trebouet et al. (2001).

Unlike most of the industrial waste stream, the quality and nature of leachate is very dynamic in India, it varies from location to location within the city boundaries primarily due to various socio-economic diversity. It also depends upon several other common factors such as, the composition of solid waste, age of waste, operation of landfills, moisture content of waste, rate of water movement through the waste, temperature, chemical and biological activity, precipitation and seasonal variations in weather Westlake (1995), McArdle et al. (1988). This makes characterization of leachate a challenge. Nonetheless, since it is a waste stream, it is characterized on standard parameters like BOD, COD, ratio of BOD/COD, pH, suspended solids (SS), ammonium nitrogen (NH3-N), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) and heavy metals (Renou et al., 2008).

For the treatment of leachate in large scale industrial units, modular, multistage combined treatment techniques are purposely practiced; so that they can handle varying leachate contamination over the years. Global industrial experience has been that biological processes are more effective in treating fresh leachates that contain volatile fatty acids rather than stabilized leachates (Chaturvedi et al. GETS 2015)

The experimental work was carried out on the demonstration cum test facility available within the premises of the 12 MW Ghazipur waste to energy facility at Delhi, India (Delhi Govt.). The aim of this study was to compare and analyze the findings from the three conventional leachate treatment techniques namely, Activated Sludge Process (Suspended Growth), Fixed Film Process (Attached Growth) (Dabi , 2015) and an innovative PVA Gel treatment techniques (Combined Process) for large scale leachate treatment.

PVA Gel offers a unique bio-carrier that has been established as an effective biological wastewater treatment technology (Chaturvedi et al. GETS 2015, Gani et al. 2014). However, PVA gel beads have not been tested on the heterogeneous Indian MSW leachate. This study compares the effectiveness of the conventional and innovative biological technologies for the treatment of heterogeneous MSW leachate.

Section snippets

MSW

Fresh municipal solid waste (500–1000 tons) is brought to the plant everyday by EDMC trucks and dumped into the MSW pit, where it is stored in heaps. This mixed waste contains 40%–45% moisture that is released due to the weight of the heaps. A pre-requisite for the production of good quality fuel (RDF) from raw MSW is the removal of maximum-possible water content from the waste. Therefore, grab cranes continuously mix the waste in the pit to enable maximum drainage of leachate. The material

Results and discussion

In the present demonstration plant, the Inlet water color varies from 180 to 310 hazen units. Comparative reduction in the color of that leachate by the ASP, FF and PVA Gel processes are approximately 40%, 50% and 75%, respectively (Fig. 2). Study showed the only 62% removal of color of the leachate on treating with Coagulation-Fenton process (Amuda 2006). It is an evident that gel media process offered better treatment for reduction in color against ASP and FF processes (Nagwekar et al., 2014

Conclusion

A large number of waste management plants are imminent in the era of a conscious approach towards environmental protection. The focus of various waste management firms and the government is being directed towards solving the humungous problem of leachate generation from waste management processes (Gupta and Arora (2016a), Gupta and Arora (2016b)). The test results of different processes on leachate shows that the efficiency of PVA Gel Media is far better than the Activated Sludge and the Fixed

Acknowledgments

We thank Department of Energy and Environment, TERI University and IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure and Services Ltd., India for providing the infrastructural facility to carry out the research work.

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