Waseem Yousef Daoud^*(1)

 (1). Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Amirkabir University  of   Technology. Tahran. Iran

 (^*Corresponding author: Waseem Yousef Daoud. EMail:waseem.daoud@yahoo.com).

Received: 15/10/2020                   Accepted: 23/11/2020

Abstract

Over the last decade, there has been an explosion in activities directed to development and implementation of PRBs. Considering the high concentrations of ammonium, heavy metals and organic contaminants in landfill leachate-contaminated groundwater, single-reactor-PRB may not be effective; for that reason a sequenced PRB has been developed. The major objective of this study is to investigate and compare the adsorption performances of Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) which is a form of carbon processed to have small, low volume pores that increase the surface area, and Natural Zeolite (NZ) which is the aluminosilicate, on one hand and combination of them in remediating landfill leachate-contaminated groundwater on the other. To come close to this goal, a novel PRB in pilot scale was designed in Plexiglas column. Three parts of 5 cm heigh were considered to put the reactive media in the middle of the column. The simulated groundwater contaminated with a COD concentration of 600 mg/l was supplied to the end of the column in upflow direction with a flow rate of 10 ml/min. by a small pump. Results showed that GAC has predominated NZ for COD removal. However, no significant removal of COD could be observed by using only NZ as a reactive medium. In addition, using NZ and GAC layers simultaneously had no significant effect on COD removal. Therefore, due to NZ acting as a good adsorbent for ammonium and heavy metals, it is recommended that the NZ and GAC compartments should rather be considered as up-gradient and down-gradient barriers, respectively.

Key words: PRB, Landfill Leachate, Groundwater, Zeolite, GAC, COD Removal.

Full paper: PDF