Influence of hydraulic retention time on biogas production during leachate treatment

The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on biogas production during leachate treatment using an anaerobic reactor type Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket. For this purpose, four HRTs ranging from 12 to 48 h were experienced. The obtained results showed that higher amount of biogas could be produced during longer HRTs. However, HRTs longer than 48 h could not affect clearly the biogas generation and considered as unnecessary given the small additional amount of biogas produced during the degradation process. A volume of $0.434L/L_{leachate}/d$ was achieved during the treatment with a HRT of 48 h. The higher biogas production, the smaller chemical oxygen demand (COD) values achieved. Besides, COD removal and biogas production positively correlate, showing that the active biomass has degraded effectively the organic load to produce biogas. Moreover, all the analyzed physicochemical parameters have experienced a decrease after 48 h except for the pH, which increased to approximately neutral value. More precisely, a decrease of 93.8%, 89.7%, 95%, 70%, 77%, and 84.4% was recorded for COD, electrical conductivity, total suspended solid, turbidity, $NH_4{^+}-N$, and $NO_3{^-}-N$, respectively.