Analysis of volatile and semivolatile micropollutants in landfill leachate and investigation of treatment performances in leachate treatment plants

Landfill is one of the most important disposal methods used in municipal sold waste management. Leachate occurs as a result of stabilization of organic materials in solid wastes. Hazardous components could be released into the environment from leachate as a result of improper disposal and treatment. Appropriate combinations of advanced technology treatment processes are applied together in order to reach the discharge standards of leachate with high pollution load and diversity. Reale-scale leachate treatment plants in the world and our country mostly focused on the removal of classical parameters, but the removal of micropollutants was not targeted. Monitoring of micropollutants has become a requirement due to binding legislations such as the European Union water framework directive. So, in this thesis, the fate of micropollutants in different processes of three leachate treatment plants established in different regions of Turkey and the micropollutant removal performances of these plants were investigated. A wide renge micropollutans (MPs) including volatile organic carbons (VOCs), polycylic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalate esters, peticides and metals were analysed through out of the leachate treatment plants (LTP). MPs in raw leachate were detected in the range of 2.4-8.0 mg/L for metals, 38-94 µg/L for VOCs, 7.6-27 µg/L for phthalate esrters, 0.6-1.3 µg/L for pesticides and 0.6-1.9 µg/L for PAHs. The maximum removal efficiency of COD was obtained as 98% for NF effluent of the İSTAÇ Kömürcüoda LTP while COD removal efficiencies of the thre LTPs were generally performed over 70%. Total VOCs were decreased to 0.7 µg/L for İSTAÇ LTP, 1.2 µg/L for İZAYDAŞ LTP and 2 µg/L for Bursa Hamitler LTP with the removal efficiency of over 93%. The removal efficiencies of semi volatile MPs for İSTAÇ LTP, İZAYDAŞ LTP and Bursa Hamitler LTP were determined as 89%, 84% and 77% for PAHs, 60%, 87% and 81% for phthalate esters, 84%, 80% and 79% for pesticides, respectively. The most detected heavy metals were Cr, Ni and Cu cations, their concentrations detected in the ranges of 0.95-1.8 mg/L, 1.6-2.2 mg/L and 0.2-4.2 mg/L, respectively, and removal efficiencies ranged between 3% and 91%.