Evaluation of membrane microfiltration fouling in landfill leachate treatment

Abstract

The membrane separation capacity allows the retention of the remaining organic matter that could not be removed by the biological process, increasing the treatment efficiency. The aim of this study was to evaluate the microfiltration (MF) process in a tertiary treatment system for landfill leachate from the Rincão das Flores, Caxias do Sul/RS/Brazil. The microfiltration system of commercial hollow fiber membrane poly(etherimide) was tested in oder to promote leachate treatment. The tests carried out were leachate permeation, concentration factor, determination of fouling and obtention of the values of the resitance to the flux. The resistance due to fouling and flux decline were evaluated to determine the best operating conditions. The potential for fouling was 53% and was evaluated by comparing the pure water permeability before and after the leachate filtration. It was observed that the resistance due to fouling express 32% of the total resistance. The results showed that the MF process allows the elimination of up to 43% of the organic matter measured as chemical oxygen demand (COD) and 63% of that measured as biological oxygen demand (BOD 5 ).

Biological Treatment, Advanced Oxidation and Membrane Separation for Landfill Leachate Treatment: A Review

“…For instance, RO process can achieve 95-99.5% COD removal while MBR followed by RO/or NF/or FO sequence also showed quite high COD removal, i.e., 88-99.53%. [169][170][171][172][173][174]. Combination of NF with the AOPs demonstrated quite good COD retention results, i.e., 87-96% [175,176].…”

Recent technologies for leachate treatment: a review

“…On the other hand, the major problem associated with the MF process is membrane fouling, which is generally caused by specific physical and chemical interactions between the contaminants in the wastewater and the membrane (Nakamura et al 2012;Xiong et al 2016). Pertile et al (2018) evaluated the application of MF to a tertiary treatment system for landfill leachate from the Rincão das Flores landfill (Brazil) and reported that this process removed 43% of the organic matter and 63% of the BOD 5 .…”

Improved Hydrophilicity of Membrane by Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid Modification

“…The thickness of the membrane increased from ~140 to 160 µm when then the wt% of EDTA increased from 1 wt% to 3 wt%. Thicker membrane increases the membrane resistance and thus it required a longer time for water molecule to pass through the membrane [15,16]. Nevertheless, the contact angle of CA2 and CA3 were lower than CA0 as showed in Figure 1.…”