Leachate is known to have complicated compositions nd hard to be treated effectively. However, the results presented in this paper show that large proportions of COD, colorants and some non-biodegradable groups could be reduced significantly at the preliminary stage of oxidation process using a strong oxidizing agent such as potassium permanganate (KMnO4). At the initial pH of 7.5, the concentrations of 10,800mg/L COD, 5,926 color (Pt-Co), 133-1,034 ppb polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), 7.49 – 712 ppb organochlorine compounds (OCS) and 21.54 – 2,560 ppb organophosphorous compounds (OPS) were investigated. Within 2 hours of treatment with the initial KMnO4 concentration of approximate 1 g/L and air flow rate of 5 L/minute, the removals of COD, color, groups of PAH, OCS and OPS from leachate were found to be 57%, 93% and over 90%, respectively. These results show that this oxidation process is more effective compared to the coagulation processes with iron or aluminum salts and this technique can be a help to improve the leachate treatment efficiency.
Keyword
COD removal, color degradation, leachate treatment
