Purification of organic contaminants in seepage water of a landfill by UV/ozone technique

Seepage water of landfills, where toxic waste is deposited, has high concentrations of chlorinated phenols (CP), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). The concentrations of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD) and dibenzofurans (PCDF) are usually found at ppq-level. Typical purification methods based on physical techniques produce highly contaminated residues, which have to be removed by combustion or deposition in a landfill. An alternative way is to destruct these contaminants by biological and chemical treatment. The behavior of the trace contaminants during UV/ozone treatment is described. Results show no significant effect for PCB and PCDD/PCDF. The CP and PAH were mostly reduced by UV/ozone treatment to a degradation ratio greater than 90%. An influence of the pH value on the UV/ozone treatment of seepage water could not be detected. A further experiment showed the degradability of PCDD/PCDF in pure water solution. To reach better results for the degradation of organic trace contaminants the seepage water first can be treated with biological methods. Thus the high TOC-concentration of 3 g/l is reduced to 50 - 70%. A combination of biological and oxidative techniques diminishes the treatment costs and better exploitation of the oxidants is reached. Because of high light absorbance of the seepage water between 200 nm and 300 nm we developed a falling-film-photo-reactor to ensure, that every volume of the solution is exposed to UV-radiation.