Background and Objectives: Wet air oxidation (WAO) is One of the advanced oxidation process which reduce organic matter concentration from industrial wastewater, toxic and non biodegradable substances and, solid waste leachate,etc. In this study the efficiency of wet air oxidation method in leachate treatment generating from Esfahan Composting factory was Evaluated.
Material and Methods: The experiment was carried out by adding 1.5 Lit of pretreated leachate sample the steel reactor with the volume of 3L. The reactor then underwent10 bar pressure at different temperature (100, 200 and 300 °C) and various retention time (30, 60 and 90 min). Leachate sample in 18 stages from composting factory in Isfahan in the volume of 20 Lit was taken and the WAO method, was used for pre-treatments. Removal efficiency of COD, BOD, NH4-N, NO3 and TSS were examined.
Results: The results showed that the removal efficiency was more than 35% for COD, 38% for BOD, and 85% for TSS within one hour of reaction. The Maximum removal efficiency obtained in this study were 53.3% for NH4-N and 73.9 % forNO3-N.
Conclusion: the results indicate that the reaction temperatures are the most important factors affecting degradation of organic matter. COD and BOD5 removal efficiency by WAO process increased as the time of reaction went up. In addition, BOD5/COD ratios of the effluents, which are generally regarded as an important index of biodegradability of leachate sample, were determined and improved grately as it reached to 84%. TheWAO process presented in this paper is considered an efficient process for pretreatment of leachate, as the COD, BOD5 and NO3 reduction observed in leachate samples.
