Biodegradability improvement of composting leachate by sulfate radical-advanced oxidation process followed by aerobic and anaerobic treatment

Abstract

Comparing to strong traditional oxidation, the persulfate and sulfate radicals was characterized by relatively low cost and easy application. The present study aimed to investigate the performance of sulfate radical-based advanced oxidation process (SR-AOP) for pretreatment of compost leachate in order to improvement of its biodegradability. Materials and Methods: The sulfate radicals was used for pretreatment of compost leachate in the batch reactor followed by aerobic and anaerobic biological reactors. Results: the results of combination of SRAOP with biological treatment showed that BOD5/COD ratio was increase. However, the different trend was observed in COD removal by sequencing batch reactor (SBR) and anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR). Comparing to SR-AOP with ASBR, the SR-AOP with SBR substantially improved final COD removal efficiency up to 70. Although pretreatment of compost leachate with the SR-AOP clearly improved the BOD5/COD ratio of entering raw leachate into ASBR (from 0.4 to 0.65), but, the COD removal efficiency was ranging between 25 and 27. Conclusion: Based on the results, it can be concluded that the BOD5/COD ratio cannot be suggested as biodegradability improvement indicator without considerations of changing of substrate nature during pretreatment. © 2021 Royal Society of Chemistry. All rights reserved.