Ammonia recovery from landfill leachate using hydrophobic membrane contactors.

This article aims to evaluate membrane contactors capability to remove and recover ammonia from landfill leachate (LFL). A hydrophobic hollow fiber membrane module was used to achieve such purpose. A sulfuric acid diluted solution was used as extraction solution to speed up ammonia content removal. Several factors that have influence on ammonia removal and recovery capability such as ammonia solution pH, concentration of sulfuric acid solutions and flow rate of liquid phases have been examined. Microfiltration was the method used as pretreatment. The results have shown that membrane contactor operated with LFL (pH 10), 0.1 M acid solution and liquid flow rate up to 0.5 L min-1 achieved 99.9% of ammonia removal, which corresponds to 79.1% of ammonia recovery from the extraction solution, and it is capable to produce highly purified ammonium sulfate solutions (41.2%, wt wt-1) to be used as fertilizer. The concentration of total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) in the residual LFL complies with Brazilian law requirements of 20.0 mg L-1 of TAN, regarding the disposal of effluents.

Pilot aerobic membrane bioreactor and nanofiltration for municipal landfill leachate treatment.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the integration of the air stripping, membrane bioreactor (MBR) and nanofiltration (NF) processes for the treatment of landfill leachate (LFL). Pretreatment by air stripping, without adjustment of pH, removed 65% of N-NH3 present in LFL. After pretreatment, the effluent was treated in MBR obtaining 44% of COD removal, and part of the N-NH3 was converted to nitrite and nitrate, which was later removed in the post-treatment. Nanofiltration was shown to be an effective process to improve the removal of organic compounds, the high toxicity present in LFL and nitrite and nitrate generated in the MBR. The system (air stripping + MBR + nanofiltration) obtained great efficiency of removal in most parameters analyzed, with overall removal of COD, ammonia, color and toxicity approximately 88, 95, 100 and 100%, respectively. By this route, treated landfill leachate may be reused at the landfill as water for dust arrestment and also as earth work on construction sites.

Microfiltration of vinasse: sustainable strategy to improve its nutritive potential.

The purpose of this article was to evaluate and establish microfiltration (MF) operating conditions for vinasse (ethanol industries wastewater also known as stillage, slop, distillery effluent or dunder) concentration aiming to improve the use of its nutritive potential. The operating conditions influence permeate flux that has been evaluated by monitoring the flow rate profile during the operation on bench scale in different conditions (feed pH, aeration condition and recovery rate). From the results found, the process scale up was then effected. The bench scale findings showed that the vinasse microfiltration under air flow of 0.5 m(3).h(-1) between membrane fibers, with no pH adjustment, and recovery rate of 93% produced two flows, one of permeate that may be used to wash the sugarcane during the ethanol production processing, and the other of concentrate that contains a high organic compounds and nutrients concentration. This concentrate has additional potentiality of being used as organic compound supplement in contaminated soil bioremediation, and as a supplier of microbial biomass or substrate for biosurfactant production.