Inhibitory factors for aerobic granulation with landfill leachate

To investigate the effects of inhibitory factors of landfill leachate on aerobic granulation, a column sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was operated to cultivate granules with landfill leachate. Results showed that high concentration of ammonia and salinity repressed the production of EPS and development of microbial activity, induced the increment of effluent SS, thus inhibited the granulation process and stability of reactor. Finally, granules began to appear until after 40 days operation, and became more and more dispersed in size distribution with diameter increasing. Moreover, it should emphasized that once the granules formed, due to the protection from compact dimensional structure, functional bacteria were not so susceptible to the extra-granule environment as before, even encountering worse situations. Stable treatment performances were achieved at last.