PHOTOCATALYTIC DEGRADATION PROCESS FOR LANDFILL LEACHATE IN THE PRESENCE CLAY IMPREGNATED WITH TITANIUM DIOXIDE

ABSTRACT

Leachate is the fluid formed from the breakdown of waste, the fluid is toxic and contains a variety of organic compounds capable of polluting the land, ground water and water resources, and are difficult to convent into harmless inorganic compounds. The aim of this research is using the advanced oxidation method(AOPs), photocatalysis, with a modified clay to investigate the degradation of the leachate before disposal to the environment. In this research, the central composite design (CCD) in response surface methodology (RSM) was adopted for experimental modeling and optimization, three factors were of importance pH (3,5,7) reaction time (50, 100, 150) mins and adsorbent dosage (0.5, 1, 2)g/l with chemical oxygen demand (COD) reduction from the leachate as the response. At optimized condition of pH 7, time 150mins and 1g/l, COD reduction of 64.09% was achieved and the experimental result were in agreement with the predicted result with its R2 value of 0.8303. From the result it can be analyzed that after a certain variable increment, the degradation of leachate monitoring its COD parameter dropped i.e an increment in the adsorbent dosage reduced the degradation, for a pH value of 3 gave the less degradation while a pH 7 gave the most degradation. The leachate degradation using ultraviolent and clay may be an economically valuable process which could be of a high pollutant reduction from landfill leachate.