Review on landfill leachate treatment methods

Abstract In most countries, sanitary landfill is the most commonly used method to eliminate municipal and industrial solid waste, but landfill produces seriously polluted landfill leachate. Landfill leachate contains many kinds of pollutants: such as refractory organic compounds and heavy metals. In general, there are three methods to treat landfill leachate: leachate transfer, biological processes, chemical and physical methods and membrane processes. Membrane processes can be divided into four types: microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO). Membrane process has the advantages of stable effluent and high rejection rate for refractory organic matter. But high treatment cost and membrane fouling problem affect the applications of membrane in practice.