Abstract
In order to treat leachate from aged landfill site effectively, removal of biologically recalcitrant organic matter and denitrification efficiency were evaluated through the combination of $H_2O_2/O_3$ AOP pretreatment process and UASB process. The results can be summarized as follows. In case of leachate having low COD/N ratio from aged landfill site, it is possible to increase available COD for denitrification in nitrate utilizing denitrification and nitrite utilizing denitrification both by enhancing biodegradability of recalcitrant organic matter as applying $H_2O_2/O_3$ AOP to pretreatment process. In this experiment, it is found that available COD for denitrification can be increased to 1.0 and 0.4 g/day, respectively. Comparison has been made between requiring COD and available COD for denitrification in each experimental stages. It is expected that high rate of denitrification can be achieved with leachate from young landfill site because higher amount of available COD for denotrification is present in the leachate than the amount of requiring COD for denitrification. Especially, In leachate from aged landfill site with low COD/N ratio, it can be concluded that denitrification using nitrite nitrogen can enhance overall denitrification performance efficiently because denitrification using nitrite nitrogen requires less amount of carbon source than denitrification using nitrate nitrogen. Comparing the biogas production rate and nitrogen content of biogas under the condition of same amount of nitrate and nitrite addition, biogas production and nitrogen content of biogas are increased during denitrification after $H_2O_2/O_3$ AOP pretreatment process. Therefore, it can be confirmed that COD/N ratio in the leachate is increased. Applying $H_2O_2/O_3$ AOP as pretreatment system of landfill leachate seems to have little economic benefit because it requires additional carbon source to denitrify ammonia nitrogen in leachate coming from aged landfill site. However, it is possible to apply this pretreatment process to leachate from old landfill site in view of AOP process can achieve removal of biologically recalcitrant organic matter and increase of available COD for denitrification simultaneously.