491 Q IWA Publishing 2009 Water Science & Technology—WST | 60.

2 | 2009

Combined treatment of leachate from sanitary landfill

and municipal wastewater by UASB reactors
Patricia Torres, Jenny A. Rodrı́guez, Luz E. Barba, Luis F. Marmolejo
and Carlos A. Pizarro

ABSTRACT

Landfills are among the most affordable and acceptable methods in terms of public health and Patricia Torres
Jenny A. Rodrı́guez
environmental protection for the final disposal of solid waste. Leachate treatment incorporated Luz E. Barba
Luis F. Marmolejo
into anaerobic domestic wastewater systems could be a viable and efficient alternative which Carlos A. Pizarro
would allow minimizing implementation and operation costs of the landfill, to reduce Escuela de Ingenierı́a de Recursos
Naturales y del Ambiente,
requirements of chemical inputs such as pH conditioners and phosphorus supply. This study Universidad del Valle,
Ciudad Universitaria Meléndez,
showed the potential of anaerobic treatment in an UASB reactor treating a combination of Calle 13 No. 100-00, A.A. 25360,
Cali,
domestic wastewater and leachate in a 5% volumetric ratio of leachate. Under these conditions Colombia
the reactor assimilated properly the leachate fraction incorporated. With a HRT of 8 h and a mean E-mail: patoloz@univalle.edu.co;
yennyrod@univalle.edu.co;
volumetric organic load of 2.84 kg m23 d21 COD removal efficiencies around 70% were obtained, luebarba@univalle.edu.co;
lufermar@univalle.edu.co;
without inhibition problems; however, the necessity of a complementary treatment for improving carpizar@gmail.com

carbonaceous and nitrogenous organic matter reduction is evident.

Key words | combined treatment, domestic wastewater, landfill leachate, UASB

INTRODUCTION

Landfills constitute one of the most economical and
acceptable methods from the point of view of public health
and environmental protection for the final disposal of solid
waste. Since its conception and during the design, con-
struction, operation and decomission phases, landfills must
guarantee the minimization and control of the enviromental
and sanitary effects that their implementation could cause,
being one of those environmental inconveniences the one
associated to the inappropriate handling of the generated
leachate. Landfill leachate is a potentially polluting liquid,
which is usually associated with soil, surface water and
groundwater contamination.
A number of leachate treatments have been applied
with varying degrees of success. These treatments can
be classified into three groups: (a) leachate transfer:
recycling and combined treatment with domestic sewage;
(b) biodegradation: aerobic and anaerobic processes and
doi: 10.2166/wst.2009.365
(c) chemical and physical methods: chemical oxidation,
adsorption, chemical precipitation, coagulation/floculation,
sedimentation/flotation and air stripping (Renou et al.
2008). Because of leachate high concentrations of refractory
and organic and inorganic contaminants, it is difficult to
obtain satisfactory treatment efficiency by a stand alone
method (Neczaj et al. 2007; Salem et al. 2008) which
makes necessary a combination of them.
Combined treatment of leachate and domestic waste-
water could constitute an economically-feasible, easy to
operate and efficient alternative in which the degradation of
organic pollutants would be favoured by dilution, providing
a better control of the influent characteristics, since
leachate contaminant load and flowrates have a high
degree of variability in quality and quantity in time
(Diamadopoulos et al. 1997; del Borghi et al. 2003). Some
of the requirements to make viable to treat the leachate
 492 P. Torres et al. | Combined treatment of leachate from sanitary landfill and municipal wastewater
together with domestic wastewater in the domestic waste-
water plant are the leachate transport readiness to the
domestic wastewater treatment plant, the capacity of the
wastewater plant to assimilate the daily amount of leachate
and the compatibility of the process with the characteristics
of that material (Facchin et al. 2000).
Different from the treatment of leachate alone, a
favorable aspect of the combined treatment of leachate
with domestic wastewaters is that nutrients addition is
not necessary, because the nitrogen is supplied by the
leachate and the phosphorus by the domestic wastewater,
which reduces operational costs and simplifies the
operation (Renou et al. 2008). In addition, the increase
in the organic load resulting from the leachate addition to
the domestic wastewater will result in a higher methane
production in the anaerobic treatment, which represents
an important potential for energetic exploitation. How-
ever, the inhibitory effect of some organic compounds
with low biodegradability and heavy metals which reduce
the treatment efficiency must be avoided (Çeçen & Aktas
2004). This situation can be controlled by selecting the
volumetric ratio of leachate in the total wastewater
according to the physico-chemical characteristics and
including homogenization tanks in the wastewater treat-
ment plant.
Combined treatment of leachate
wastewaters in biological systems at lab and real scale
was investigated by several researchs
Diamadopoulos et al. 1997; Facchin et al. 2000; Çeçen &
Çakiroğlu 2001; Silva et al. 2002; del Borghi et al. 2003;
Fueyo et al. 2003; Çeçen & Aktas 2004). Experimental
results show that the application of different volumetric
ratios of leachate depend on the characteristics such as
the leachate age and the level of compounds of difficult
biodegradation and heavy metals. In all cases volumetric
ratio of leachate less than 20% (v/v) have been found to be
appropriate, with prevalence of values less than 10%,
reaching destruction efficiencies of chemical oxygen
demand (COD) among 50 and 80%.
In this work, two UASB reactors at lab scale, one
treating domestic waste waters and the second treating a
combination of domestic wastewater and leachate in a
volumetric ratio of leachate of 5% have been operated in
order to select the best operating conditions to perform an
Water Science & Technology—WST | 60.2 | 2009
efficient alternative for the treatment of the leachate
generated in the landfills.
METHODS
Two UASB reactors at lab scale, with a useful volume of 6L
were operated during an eight months period. In the first
reactor (R1) the domestic wastewater treatment was
conducted and in the second reactor (R2) a combination
of domestic wastewater and leachate in a volumetric ratio of
leachate of 5%. This volumetric ratio was selected according
to a previous study of anaerobic biodegradation of the
evaluated leachate, which showed that a percentage
of less than 10% does not cause any inhibitory effect of
the domestic wastewater anaerobic treatment (Barba et al.
2008). The reactors were operated at an almost constant
temperature of 278C.
The leachate was obtained from a local landfill which
receives domestic solid waste generated by sixteen Colom-
bian towns. Raw domestic wastewater was taken from the
influent of a wastewater treatment plant located in Cali-
Colombia. Leachate and raw wastewater were character-
ized and stored in a refrigerator at 48C to retard biological
decomposition. The inoculation sludge was taken from a
with domestic UASB reactor treating domestic wastewater and was
acclimatized in batch during a month period prior to the
(Kelly 1987; start up of the UASB reactors (VS/TS: 0.54; SMA:
0.31 g COD-CH4 g VSS21 d21). The conditioning of the
sludge consisted in the gradual increase of leachate
percentage to the domestic wastewater used as substrate
until reaching a 5% proportion of leachate.
The start up of the reactors consisted in the progressive
reduction of the hydraulic retention time (HRT) and the
increase of the volumetric organic load based on the stable
behavior of the COD and VFAs effluent concentrations. The
initial HRT for both reactors was 24 h, typical value in the
start up of anaerobic reactors treating domestic wastewater,
which was progressively reduced up to 8 h (regular design
condition for UASB reactors treating domestic wastewater
in tropical climate).
The reactor behavior was controlled by monitoring the
parameters pH, COD, BOD5, TSS, TKN, NHþ
4 ZN and
NOXZN which were analysed in accordance with Standard
 493 P. Torres et al. | Combined treatment of leachate from sanitary landfill and municipal wastewater Water Science & Technology—WST | 60.2 | 2009

Methods (APHA 2005) and VFAs and total and bicarbonate

alkalinity according to Field (1994).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The average domestic wastewater and its mixture with

leachate characteristics are presented in Table 1 where it is
observed that the leachate incorporation modified con-
siderably the domestic wastewater characteristics. In order
to guarantee environmental optimum conditions a pH Figure 1 | COD removal efficiencies during the start up of the R1 reactor.

conditioning was carried out to values near neutrality for

the domestic wastewater/leachate mixture.
compounds present in the leachate, despite its value
In comparison with the domestic wastewater, the
over the usually found in domestic wastewaters, reached
mixture alkalinity increased due to the contribution of the
lower values to the range considered inhibitory for
leachate, however, bicarbonate alkalinity predominance
anaerobic processes (1,100– 3,000 mg L21), mainly if pH
was maintained, which guarantees the adequate buffer
is over 7.6 units (Speece 1996). Additionally, COD:N:P
capacity for the anaerobic process control. The mixture
relations also were found into the suggested range for
organic matter content quantified as COD is in the typical
anaerobic treatment.
range of concentrated domestic wastewaters indicating that
Due to the fact that the solid waste disposed in the
in spite of the increase of its concentration the leachate
landfill is exclusively domestic, heavy metal levels were not
proportion incorporated to domestic wastewater did not
inhibitory for the biological treatment.
affect the relation BOD5/COD and was maintained in a
As can be seen in Figure 1, the VOL-R1 oscillated in a
suitable value for the application of a biological treatment.
It is important to point out that the nitrogen as rather narrow range, with predominance of values between

ammonia, which normally is one of the inhibitory 1 and 2 kg COD m23 d21. In R2 (Figure 2) two variation
ranges were obtained, the first one (HRT between 24 and
Table 1 | Average characteristics of the influents to R1 and R2
16 hours) was characterized by low volumetric organic
Domestic load values (around 1 kg COD m23 d21) and the second
wastewater:
one (12 to 8 hours) showed higher values between 2 and
Domestic leachate
Variable wastewater (R1) mixture (R2) 3.8 kg COD m23 d21. This variation of the volumetric
pH (unit) 7.1– 8.2 7.0 – 7.3 organic load was due to the COD concentration variation
Bicarbonate alkalinity 230 711 in the leachate.
(mg CaCO3 L21) R1 reactor showed some instability signals explained
Total alcalinity 303 893 by a slight accumulation of VFAs when HRT was 10 h.
(mg CaCO3 L21)
Nevertheless, the reactor recovered its stability after a
VFAs (meq L21) 4.3 8.1
short period confirming that the start up strategy based
COD Total (mg L21) 435 982
on the reduction of the HRT was suitable and reaching
COD Filtered (mg L21) 330 743
stability conditions and maximum treatment capacity
BOD5 (mg L21) 290 650
(COD reduction efficiency around 70%) for a HRT of 8 h
BOD5/COD 0.67 0.66
in a period of 35 d. For R2 reactor, the start up took
TKN (mg L21) 72 148
longer, reaching stability conditions and suitable DQO
NHþ
4 -N (mg L
21
) 57 111
removal efficiency after 100 days of operations with a HRT
COD:N:P 350:46:8 350:40:5
of 12 h. Due to the slight variation of the VOL from these
 494 P. Torres et al. | Combined treatment of leachate from sanitary landfill and municipal wastewater Water Science & Technology—WST | 60.2 | 2009

and the produced in the UASB reactors guaranteed high

Figure 2 | COD removal efficiencies during the start up of the R2 reactor.
operation conditions, the reactor could be operated with
the same efficiency with up to a HRT of 8 h, which is
significantly low when compared with the required HRT
for the anaerobic treatment of the leachate alone. The fact
that the VOL did not increase despite the increse of
the hydraulic charge was attributed to the reduction of the
concentration of the COD of the leachate. These results
are comparable with those obtained by Yangin et al. (2002)
who reported a HRT between 0.76 to 0.52 d and 58% and
85% COD removal efficiencies at organic loading rates of
0.63 and 2 kg COD m 23
respectively for 2.5 and 2%
buffer capacity, due to the efficient removal of VFA and
amonification processes, prevailing bicarbonate alkalinity.
In both reactors the total COD effluent concentration
was similar to the filtered COD, indicating the low presence
of suspended material. This in fact was corroborated with
the low values of TSS, whose removal efficiencies were over
80% during the start up and exceeded 90% in the stable
condition. Despite COD concentrations of R2 were higher
than COD concentrations of R1, removal efficiencies were
similar, showing that both reactors guaranteed the same
organic matter reduction capacity.
Experimental results agree with those reported by de
Sousa et al. (2002) who found COD reduction efficiencies,
between 70 and 73% in an UASB reactor treating
domestic wastewater mixed with a 1 to 10% leachate
range (volumetric organic load 2.3 –4.62 kg COD m23 d21)
in a HRT of 10 h.
The observed perfomance in R2 allows affirming that
the domestic wastewater assimilated properly the leachate
fraction incorporated to it, without inhibition problems,
however, the necessity of a complementary treatement for
improving the carbonaceous and nitrogenous organic

leachate proportion. matter is evident.

In Table 2, the average characteristics of the R1 and R2

effluents are shown. It is observed that the initial alkalinity
CONCLUSIONS
Table 2 | Average characteristics of the effluents to R1 and R2
Results show that the mixture of domestic wastewater with
Domestic a 5% leachate presents a high potencial for being treated in
wastewater:
Domestic leachate anaerobic UASB reactors with an 8 hours HRT obtaining
Variable wastewater (R1) mixture (R2) reduction efficiencies of COD and TSS stable around 70
pH (unit) 7.6 – 8.3 8.1 – 8.2 and 90% respectively, however, in order to improve the
Bicarbonate alkalinity 303 687 COD removal efficiencies and nutrient removal it is
(mg CaCO3 L21) necessary to implement a post-treatment stage.
Total alcalinity 365 768 Having into account the amount of wastewater gener-
(mg CaCO3 L21)
ated by a population and the amount of leachate produced
VFAs (meq L21) 2.9 3.2
21
which is less than 5%, this research proves the high
COD total (mg L ) 130 250
potential of the combined treatment of these two residues.
COD filtered (mg L21) 109 233
Combined treatment of leachate with domestic waste-
BOD5 (mg L21) 80 150
waters represents an interesting area of research given the
BOD5/COD 0.62 0.60
advantages of these technologies, especially for developing
TSS (mg L21) 28 48
countries with tropical climate, where efficient, low cost
NHþ 21
4 -N (mg L ) 52 74
and sustainable technologies are required.
 495 P. Torres et al. | Combined treatment of leachate from sanitary landfill and municipal wastewater
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