Landfill Leaching-Contaminated Groundwater Remediation by Permeable Reactive Barrier

Collection and treatment of landfill leaching is one of the most important challenges in the operation of municipal solid waste landfills. Since the most parts of Iran, due to the arid and semi-arid climate, are faced with the limited water resources, the study of landfill leaching-contaminated groundwater remediation is also very important.
In recent decades, extensive work has been done regarding the development and implementation of permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) but application of this method needs more investigations for landfill leaching-contaminated groundwater remediation. For this purpose, the groundwater remediation method by permeable reactive barriers was investigated in this paper. In addition, the granular activated carbon and natural zeolite were studied as a common media for the removal of organic pollutants in water.
For the experiment, leaching-contaminated water with a COD of 690, 1910 and 3100 (mg/l) was passed from the experimental model of permeable reactive barrier, filled with washed sand, granular activated carbon and natural zeolite, and COD removal rate was calculated in each condition.
Findings: The highest COD removal was obtained by granular activated carbon and the best performance was in the 690 (mg/l) concentration pollutants. Also, significant differences were not observed in the rate of COD removal efficiency by zeolite compare to sand.
Discussion and Therefore, in order to optimize the use of reactive media, the system must be arranged with layers of zeolite and activated carbon respectively and in a suitable distance from pollution source so that removal of pollutants by the soil can be used in addition to the proper removal of pollutants by each layer.