Physical-Chemical Treatment and Disinfection of A
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PHYSICAL-CHEMICAL TREATMENT AND DISINFECTION OF A LANDFILL LEACHATE by Victor B. Bjorkman B.A.Sc., University of British Columbia, 1951 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF APPLIED SCIENCE in The Faculty of Graduate Studies C The Department of Civil Engineering) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standards THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA May, 1979 Victor Bernhard Bj orkman In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my permission. Victor B. Bjorkman Department of Civil Engineering The University of British Columbia 2075 Westbrook Place Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1W5 Canada ii ABSTRACT Water, flowing through beds of refuse in a sanitary landfill, will leach organic and inorganic substances from the fill. These leached substances may be a source of pollution for receiving surface or ground waters. The leachate, before it is diluted by the receiving water, can usually be classed as a very strong waste water; that is, the levels of the waste water parameters COD, Suspended Solids, low dissolved oxygen and turbidity are many times those found in normal, municipal waste water. Added to these foregoing parameters are possible high levels of toxic chemicals and metals. It is now generally recognized that the leachate from refuse landfills should be controlled, and in some recently designed landfills, leachate collection is incorporated into the overall design. Toxic chemicals and metals are not adequately removed from waste waters by the standard biological sewage treatment processes; thus, the collected landfill leachate often requires pretreatment before it can be discharged to a municipal sewer system. If it is to be discharged to a natural receiving water, it requires more complete treatment. It was the purpose of this research to attempt to develop a physical-chemical treatment system for landfill leachate, such that the effluent might be safely discharged to a biological treatment plant or a natural receiving water. To deal with the extremely large number of possible chemical reagents, and to a lesser extent, physical methods available-, it was first necessary to select a number of primary candidates from prior information and theory available in the literature; secondly, it was advantageous to use a statistically designed experimental programme for screening those candidates chosen. In the screening process, no changes in the physical parameters screened, such as duration and speed of mixing or duration of settling, were found to be significant, if normal minimum times and usual speeds were used. Four chemical reagents, lime, ozone, ferric sulfate, and alum were indicated as having a potentially significant effect on the leachate- contained Total Solids (TS), Total Carbon (TC), Turbidity (Turb), Cadmium (Cd), Copper (Cu), Iron (Fe), Zinc (Zn), Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca), Sodium (Na), Phosphorus and the acid-base relationship as expressed by the term pH. The follow-up experiments determined that only two of the above four reagents were significantly effective in removal of the afore-named pollutants, as well as Manganese (Mn), Lead (Pb), Colour, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), the components of Total Carbon (TC) Total Inorganic Carbon (TIC) and Total Organic Carbon (TOC), and the components of Total Solids (TS)—Suspended Solids (SS) and Dissolved Solids (DS). All of the multivalent metals, except Calcium, were significantly removed from this wastewater by pH adjustment with lime, with additional minor removals by oxidation with ozone. Dissolved organic materials were not removed by pH adjustment and only removed in approximate stoichiometric amounts by reaction with ozone. In these experiments, the polymers tested were not effective in the removal of the named pollutants. Ozone is indicated to be an effective disinfectant, but highly sensitive to the COD of the leachate. An ozone-COD ratio, which determines the quantity of applied ozone necessary for the oxidation of some of the dissolved metals and for disinfection, as a function of the contained COD, is proposed for this leachate. The possibility of the application of this ozone-COD ratio is put forth, subject to further investigation. V TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT t ii LIST OF TABLES' viii LIST OF FIGURES xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT xiii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 The Sanitary Landfill 1 1.2 Landfill Leachate 1 1.3 Leachate Production 2 1.4- Effect of Leachate on Receiving Environment 2 1.5 The Character of Leachate 3 1.6 Purpose of This Research Project 3 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN 10 2.1 Previous Research on the Treatment of Landfill Leachate 10 2.2 Experimental Programme 12 3 . GENERAL-REVIEW OF PHYSICAL CHEMICAL PROCESSES 14 3.1 General Process Description 14 3.2 Physical Unit Processes 14 3.3 Chemical Unit Processes 14 3.4 Advantages and Disadvantages of Physical-Chemical Processes 15 4„ SELECTION OF REAGENT AND PROCESS CANDIDATES 17 4.1 Division of the Experimental Programme into Two Phases 17 vi 4.2 Chemical Reagents 17 4.3 Physical Unit Operations Screened 18 5 EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN 20 5.1 Statistical Factorial Design 20 5.2 Fractional Factorial Design 20 5.3 Calculation of Effects 24 5.4 Calculation of the Standard Deviation 26 5.5 Determining the Significant Effects 28 6 EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS AND ANALYTICAL METHODS 42 6.1 Ozone Generating and Contact System 42 6.2 Physical Unit Processes Simulation 44 6.3 Analytical Methods 45 6.4 Disinfection with Ozone • 46 6.5 Ozone Disinfection Procedure 47 7 PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF DATA 48 7.1 Data—Screening Experiments 48 7.2 Discussion of Screening Data 48 7.3 Post-Screening Experimental Data 50 7.4 Discussion of Post-Screening Data 72 7.5 Data—Ozone Disinfection 77 7.6 Discussion of Disinfection Data 77 7.7 General Discussion 80 7.8 Application of Results to Predict Ozone Requirements . 83 7.9 Cost Considerations 89 8 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 91 8.1 Conclusions 91 vii 8.2 Recommendations 92 9 LIST OF REFERENCES 9 5 10 APPENDICES General Bibliography 98 Raw Data 99 viii LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1 LIMITS FOR EFFLUENT PARAMETERS THAT MAY BE OF CONCERN IN SPECIFIC DISCHARGE 4 2 RECEIVING WATER QUALITY MAINTENANCE OBJECTIVES .... 6 3 TYPICAL COMPOSITION OF LEACHATES 9 4 TREATMENT VARIABLES SCREENED AND APPLIED LEVELS OF EACH CORRESPONDING TO "HIGH" AND "LOW" LEVELS INDICATED IN SCREENING DESIGN MATRIX OF TABLE 5 19 5 PLACKET-BURMAN DESIGN FOR DETERMINING THE EFFECT OF 15 VARIABLES, AT 2 LEVELS EACH, USING 16 RUNS 22 6 POLLUTANTS MEASURED IN THE SCREENING PROCESS .... 23 7 FOUND VALUES OF THE POLLUTANTS MEASURED IN THE SCREENING EXPERIMENTS 25 8 COMPILATION OF STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT EFFECTS FOR VARIABLES OF SCREENING EXPERIMENTS 41 9 COMPILATION OF REAGENT DOSING LEVELS FOR GROUPS 1, 2 AND 3 WITH SIGNIFICANT POLLUTING CHARACTERISTICS SHOWN WHERE APPLICABLE 52 10 COMPILATION OF REAGENT DOSING LEVELS FOR GROUPS 4, 5 AND 6 WITH SIGNIFICANT POLLUTING CHARACTERISTICS SHOWN WHERE APPLICABLE 53 11 COMPILATION OF REAGENT DOSING LEVELS FOR GROUPS 7, 8 AND 9 WITH SIGNIFICANT POLLUTING CHARACTERISTICS SHOWN WHERE APPLICABLE 54 12 COMPILATION OF REAGENT DOSING LEVELS FOR GROUPS 10 AND 11 O ix WITH SIGNIFICANT POLLUTING CHARACTERISTICS SHOWN WHERE APPLICABLE 55 13 COMPILATION OF REAGENT DOSING LEVELS FOR GROUP 12, RUNS 101-104 56 14 NAME CODES FOR THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLES FOR THE POST-SCREENING EXPERIMENTS (.GROUPS 2-12) 57 15 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 2, RUNS 17, 18, 20, 23, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32 58 16 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 4, RUNS 37-52 59 17 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 5, RUNS 53-56 60 18 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 6, RUNS 57-61 61 19 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 7, RUNS 57, 62-64 62 20 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 8, RUNS 65-72 63 21 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 9, RUNS 73-80 64 22 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 10, RUNS 81-96 65 23 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 11, RUNS 97-100 66 24 REMOVAL OF SELECTED POLLUTANTS FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE IN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP 12, RUNS 101-104 67 X 25 EXAMPLE OF A FACTORIAL DESIGN MATRIX USED IN THE POST-SCREENING EXPERIMENTS WITH THE MAIN EFFECTS AND THE INTERACTION EFFECTS CALCULATED FOR EACH OF THE FOUR TREATMENT VARIABLES USED IN GROUP 4 (EFFECT ON DEPENDENT VARIABLE—COLOUR) % 69 26 SUMMARY OF BEST LOW' RESIDUALS OBTAINED WITH'REAGENT DOSES AND DOSE RANGES AS INDICATED 78 27 STANDARD PLATE COUNTS AT 35°C FOR LEACHATE TREATED WITH OZONE (COD OF 14,300 irig/1) 79 xi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1 HALF-NORMAL PLOT OF THE SCREENING DATA FOR TURBIDITY WITH RELATED TABULATED EXAMPLE OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION CALCULATION 27 2 HALF-NORMAL PLOT OF THE SCREENING DATA FOR pH WITH RELATED TABULATED EXAMPLE OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION CALCULATION 30 3 HALF-NORMAL PLOT OF THE SCREENING DATA FOR TOTAL CARBON WITH RELATED TABULATED EXAMPLE OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION CALCULATION 31 4 HALF-NORMAL PLOT OF THE SCREENING DATA FOR PHOSPHORUS WITH RELATED TABULATED EXAMPLE OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION CALCULATION 32 5 HALF-NORMAL PLOT OF THE SCREENING DATA FOR TOTAL SOLIDS WITH RELATED TABULATED EXAMPLE OF THE STANDARD DEVIATION CALCULATION ..