The generation of landfill leachate is one the major problems associated with landfilling which is a primary way to dispose the municipal solid waste. Landfill leachate may contain high concentration of organic contaminants, ammonium-nitrogen, heavy metals and inorganic salts. Pre-treatment of landfill leachate is necessary to reduce the organic loading and convert recalcitrant organics to bioavailable when direct disposal to a WWTP is not feasible. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the removal of organic contaminants from the landfill leachate by a submerged anaerobic filter and investigate how the carbon and nitrogen, specifically, recalcitrant organics change through the anaerobic treatment. The leachate investigated in this study has a high concentration of DOC (7880 mg C/L), which is comprised of 50% of the humic carbon, which is a compositionally complex, polydisperse mixture that contains tens of thousands of unique elemental compositions. Only ultrahigh resolution Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) achieves sufficient resolving power to identify organic compounds at the level of elemental composition assignment for dissolved organic matter (DOM) compounds from aqueous leachate samples. Here, we catalogue compositional changes that occur to organic carbon as it flows over an anaerobic filter, and identify and catalogue recalcitrant organics that challenge pre-treatment of landfill leachates with ultrahigh resolution FT-ICR mass spectrometry. To the best of our knowledge, no study has investigated the change of both recalcitrant carbon and nitrogen in the anaerobic treatment of landfill leachate and the relationship between recalcitrant carbon and nitrogen.

Ultrahigh resolution mass spectral characterization of carbon and nitrogen in a landfill leachate pretreated by a submerged anaerobic bioreactor

2019 Fall National Meeting

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