Electrochemical oxidation treatment of reverse osmosis concentrated landfill leachate: Effect of operation parameters and evolution of dissolved organic matter

Electrochemical oxidation (EO) is a viable option for the advanced treatment of reverse osmosis concentrated landfill leachate (ROCLL). This work characterized dissolved organic matter (DOM) in ROCLL with size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and then investigated the impact of operating parameters on the removal of DOM fractions with response surface methodology (RSM). The SEC chromatograms revealed that the DOM fractions in ROCLL comprised of biopolymers (BP, > 18 kDa), humic substances (HS, 0.45-18 kDa) and low molecular weight substances (LMWS, < 0.45 kDa). For the EO configuration with different anodes, the BDD film anode showed the highest removal efficiency for DOM in terms of COD, DOC, UVA254 and fluorescence indices, followed by Ti, graphite, Ti/RuO2-IrO2 and Ti/SnO2-Sb2O5 anodes. The RSM experiments suggested that pH was the most critical factor to enhance the removal of all DOM fractions, and acidification pretreatment could remove approximately 50% BP and 30% HS fractions due to the pH-induced precipitation. The DOC removal kinetics of DOM fractions could be described by pseudo-zero kinetic model with rates in the order of HS > LMWS > BP, which were controlled by charge transfer process. Differently, the elimination of chromophores and fluorophores followed pseudo-first kinetics, which was limited by mass transport process. Via nonnegativity matrix factorization (NMF) deconvolution of the SEC-OCD chromatograms, BP-C1, HS-C2 and LMWS-C1 subfractions required to be removed through further treatment after EO process. This work demonstrates the potential for SEC analysis coupled with mathematical approaches to give informative insights into the evolution of DOM and provide optimization strategies for the EO treatment of complex ROCLL.