International Journal of Scientific Research in Environmental Sciences (IJSRES), 1(2), pp.

16-25, 2013
Available online at http://www.ijsrpub.com/ijsres
ISSN: 2322-4983; 2013 IJSRPUB
http://dx.doi.org/10.12983/ijsres-2013-p016-025

Full Length Research Paper

Trends in Physical-Chemical Methods for Landfill Leachate Treatment
Amin Mojiri1, Hamidi Abdul Aziz1*, Shuokr Qarani Aziz2
1

School of Civil Engineering, Engineering Campus, University Sains Malaysia, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
2
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of SalahaddinErbil, Iraq
*Corresponding Author: cehamidi@eng.usm.my
Received 25 December 2012; Accepted 19 January 2013

Abstract. Leachate is created while water penetrates through the waste in a landfill, carrying some forms of pollutants. The
aims of this study were the review on physical-chemical methods for landfill leachate treatment. The physical-chemical ways
for landfill leachate treatment like Chemical precipitation, Chemical Oxidation, CoagulationFlocculation, Membrane
filtration, Ion exchange, Adsorption and Electrochemical treatment are studied. Chemical precipitation is generally used as pretreatment in order to remove high strength of ammonium nitrogen; fenton oxidation is one of these advanced oxidation
processes with high efficiency and low capital costs; coagulationflocculation has been used for the removal of nonbiodegradable organic compounds and heavy metals from landfill leachate; nanofiltration (NF) is one of membrane filter and it
has found a place in the removal of recalcitrant organic compounds and heavy metals from landfill leachate; adsorption is the
most widely used technique for the removal of recalcitrant organic compounds from landfill leachate; the ion-exchange method
offers a number of benefits containing the ability to handle shock loadings and operate over a wider range of temperatures. The
landfill leachate properties, technical applicability and constraints, effluent discharge alternatives, cost-effectiveness,
regulatory requirements and environmental impact are important factors to selection of the most suitable treatment technique
for landfill leachate treatment.
Key word: Adsorption method, Chemical Oxidation, Ion exchange, Leachate, Membrane filtration,

is recognized as a vital environmental problem by

modern societies (Deng, 2007).
Because of the increase in the world population
and changes in the consumption habits, solid waste
removal has become a serious environmental problem.
In the solid waste management, landfill is one of the
most prevalent methods used by many countries in the
world (Veli et al., 2008).
The any single way is no obtainable for
environmentally friendly and economically. There
will be many other studies concerning the top
available technology providing both maximum
treatment efficiency and optimum cost. The landfill
leachate treatment ways are physical, chemical and
biological ones which are used in combinations (Kl
et al., 2007).
Removals by direct biological treatment of urban
landfill leachates are generally low because of high
COD (600015,000 mg.l-1) and ammonium ion (500
3000 mg.l-1) contents, high COD/BOD ratio and also
due to the presence of toxic compounds such as metal
ions and COD. The treatment strategy generally
depends on the characteristics of the leachate. Young
landfill leachates are generally treated more easily as
compared to the old ones. Ways advanced for
treatment of landfill leachates can be classified as
physical, chemical and biological which are usually
used in combinations in order to improve the

1. INTRODUCTION
Which passes through the solid waste fill and
facilitates transfer of pollutants from solid phase to
liquid phase, landfill leachate is generated by the
penetrating water. Because of the inhomogeneous
nature of the waste and due to the different
compaction densities that will be encountered, water
will be able to percolate through and appear as
leachate at the base of the site (Cotman and Gotvajn,
2010). Landfill leachate could be a main foundation of
water contamination, if not treated and disposed
safely, because it could enter through soil and subsoil.
Therefore, before release, the treatment of hazardous
leachate components has been made a legitimate
obligation to prevent pollution of water resources and
to elude both acute and chronic toxicities (Aziz et al.,
2011a).
Landfill leachate includes organic and inorganic
contaminants in high rates. Leachate is created while
water penetrates through the waste in a landfill,
carrying some forms of pollutants like ammonianitrogen (NH3-N), chemical oxygen demand (COD),
biological oxygen demand (BOD5), colour, suspended
solids and heavy metals. It may become a potential
contamination source which threats soil, surface water
and groundwater, if they are not collected carefully
and not discharged safely. Therefore, landfill leachate

16

Mojiri et al.
Trends in Physical-Chemical Methods for Landfill Leachate Treatment

treatment efficiency. The sedimentation, air-stripping,

adsorption, membrane filtration are the physical
methods for leachate treatment. Among the chemical
ways used for leachate treatment coagulation
flocculation, chemical precipitation, chemical
electrochemical oxidations are the major ones (Karg
and Pamukoglu, 2004).

and ultraviolet light (UV) is employed in opposite to

earlier experiments. This combination shows high
oxidation rates for leachate COD and AOX. The
process contains of a mixing chamber to mix influent
leachate and the oxidation agent and thereafter a
chamber with UV-lamps. Flows are recirculated to
increase elimination rates manifold of leachate. In
opposite to mixing hydrogen peroxide and water the
mixing of gaseous ozone and water is more difficult.
It has to be encountered that also anorganic
compounds may be oxidised during the chemical
oxidation step. To prevent the expensive oxidation of
easy biodegradable components a biological pretreatment including nitrification / denitrification
should be considered. During chemical oxidation not
all organics are oxidized to carbon dioxide and water.
Some organics are only partly oxidized often to
biological degradable inter medial products. These
new biodegradable organics shall be reduced by
biological treatment. A fixed film reactor may be an
option for the reduction of these relatively low
concentrations of organics. It can also be considered
to feed the effluent of the chemical oxidation plant
back to the influent of the biological reactor
(Stegmann et al., 2005).
Amokrane et al. (1997) used oxidants like chlorine,
potassium permanganate, ozone, and calcium
hydrochloride, for landfill leachate treatment and
found COD removal of 2050%. Researchers reported
that the efficiency of COD reduction for mature and
biologically pretreated landfill leachates were 60 to 75
%, respectively by using Fenton reagent (Lopez et al.,
2004; Kang and Hwang, 2000).

2. PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL METHODS

The reduction of suspended solids, colloidal particles,
floating material, color, and toxic compounds by
flotation,
coagulation/flocculation,
adsorption,
chemical oxidation and air stripping are physical and
chemical processes. Physical/chemical treatments for
the landfill leachate are used in addition at the
treatment line (pre-treatment or last purification) or to
treat a specific pollutant (stripping for ammonia)
(Renou et al., 2008).
3. CHEMICAL PRECIPITATION
The chemical precipitation is generally used as pretreatment in order to remove high strength of
ammonium nitrogen (NH4+-N), in the case of leachate
treatment (Renou et al., 2008). Chemical precipitation
has been used for the removal of non-biodegradable
organic compounds, NH3N and heavy metals from
landfill leachate because of its capability, the
simplicity of the process and inexpensive equipment
employed. During chemical precipitation, dissolved
ions in the solution are converted to the insoluble solid
phase via chemical reactions. The removal of
ammoniacalnitrogen from anaerobically pre-treated
leachate was studied using struvite (magnesium
ammonium phosphate (MAP) precipitation in the
Odayeri landfill (Turkey). Using this method,
ammonia was converted into a nitrogen fertilizer such
as urea. About 50% COD and 90% NH3N, with an
initial COD concentration of 4024 mg/L and NH3N
concentration of 2240 mg/L, were removed
(Kurniawan et al., 2006).
Ozturk et al. (2003) used Struvite as precipitant for
the removal of NH3-N from anaerobically pre-treated
leachate. The removal efficiency of NH3-N and COD
were 90% and 50%, respectively. It is confirmed that
the ammonium concentration in leachate could be
considerably reduced by struvite precipitation.
However, this process requires relatively expensive
chemicals (Kochany and Lipczynska-Kochany, 2009).

4.1. Fenton Treatment

The Fenton process has been widely studied in recent
years, and analyses indicate Fenton process to be one
of the most cost-effective alternatives among potential
physicochemical technologies for leachate treatment
(Deng, 2007). Fenton's oxidation is one of these
advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) with high
efficiency and low capital costs. It is a mixture of
H2O2 and ferrous salts, capable to generate aggressive
hydroxyl radicals at ambient temperature. The shaped
radicals are able to oxidise a wide range of chemicals
in aquatic medium, theoretically all organic
compounds containing hydrogen (RH). The Fenton's
procedure could be effective to achieve not only good
oxidation of organics, but also their removal due to
the coagulation run in the presence of ferrous salts
(Gotvajn et al., 2011).
Fenton process can achieve two alternative goals
exploiting the strong oxidation potential of hydroxyl
radicals (OH) as one of advanced oxidation processes
(AOPs): first is the reduction of the chemical oxygen

4. CHEMICAL OXIDATION
Chemical oxidation processes were developed at
different sites in during the last years. A combination
of oxidation agents as ozone or hydrogen peroxide

17

International Journal of Scientific Research in Environmental Sciences (IJSRES), 1(2), pp. 16-25, 2013

demand (COD) content of wastewater up to the

chosen maximum allowable concentration value
through
the
mineralization
of
recalcitrant
contaminants; the second is the development of the
biodegradability of treated effluents with the aim of
making their subsequent biological treatment possible.
Commonly, Fenton process is composed of following
steps:
pH
adjustment,
oxidation
reaction,
neutralization,
coagulation
and
solidliquid
separation. Under acidic situation, the organic
substances are degraded by reactive free radicals OH
produced in the H2O2/Fe2+ mixture, and removed by
means of coagulation with formation of ferric hydroxy
complexes after neutralization. Both oxidation and
coagulation play vital roles in the removal of organics.
It is vital to understand the mutual relationships
between reaction parameters in terms of hydroxyl
radical production and consumption, in order to
understand better and improve Fenton reaction (Wu et
al., 2010).
Fenton oxidation was used by Mohajeri et al.
(2010) for the removal of colour and COD from Pulau
Burung stabilized landfill leachate whereby colour
and COD removal were 78% and 58%, respectively
(Mohajeri et al., 2010). Additionally, Gotvajn et al.
(2009) mentioned that the removal efficiency of NH3N by Fenton oxidation was 40%.
Several authors have been reported, that Fenton's
process can achieve 6090% of COD removal of
organics from landfill leachate (Gotvajn et al., 2011).
Kang and Hwang (2000) mentioned that COD
removal efficiency by oxidation was greatly affected
by the pH value and the most effective oxidation
reaction was observed below pH 4.0 (Wu et al., 2010).

Silva et al. (2004) was expressed the coagulation

and flocculation is a relatively simple method that
may be used successfully in treating old landfill
leachates. However, this treatment only leads to
moderate removals of COD and TOC, and it has its
drawbacks: sludge is produced, and in some cases,
when traditional chemical coagulants are employed,
an increase on the concentration of aluminium or iron,
in the liquid phase, may be observed.
After
the
biological
treatment,
Flocculation/Precipitation e.g. with FeCl3, is mostly
practised to reduce the organic load of the leachate.
This method is not used frequently also due to the fact
of the increase of chloride and/or sulfate in the
leachate effluent. The flocculation / precipitation step
will be necessary for the removal of the loaded
activated carbon if powered activated carbon is used
(Stegmann et al., 2005). The coagulationflocculation
processes are widely used in drinking and wastewater
treatment plants because of implementation and
operation simplicity (Rivas et al., 2004).

5.
COAGULATION-FLOCCULATION
FLOCCULATION-PRECIPITATION

6.1. Microfiltration

6. MEMBRANE FILTRATION
A membrane could be defined as a material that
creates a thin barrier capable of selectively resisting
the move of different constituents of a fluid and
therefore affecting separation of the constituents
(Visvanathan et al., 2000). Usually, a thin layer of
material with a high surface porosity and a narrow
domain of pore size affect the physical structure of the
membrane. Different membrane filtration techniques:
microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and
reverse osmosis are used in landfill leachate treatment.

OR

Microfiltration with pore sizes of 0.05 to 10 microns

is employed to capture microbial cells, small particles,
and large colloidal. According to landfill leachate
treatment, this method is not suitable to be used alone.
It is recommended to be used as pretreatment process
with other membrane processes (i.e. ultrafiltration,
nanofiltration or reverse osmosis) or in combination
with chemical treatment 10 processes so as to remove
suspended matters and colloids. Piatkiewicz et al.
(2001) used this method as pre-filtration stage and
obtained COD removal of 25% to 35 %.

As shown in Table 1, coagulationflocculation has

been used for the removal of non-biodegradable
organic compounds and heavy metals from landfill
leachate. The coagulation process destabilizes
colloidal particles by the addition of a coagulant. To
increase the particle size, coagulation is typically
followed by flocculation of the unstable particles into
bulky floccules so that they can settle more easily.
This method facilitates the removal of suspended
solids and colloid particles from a solution. The
general approach for this method contains pH
adjustment and involves the addition of ferric/alum
salts as the coagulant to overcome the repulsive forces
between the particles. The coagulation with FeCl3 was
studied for removal of heavy metals from stabilized
leachate containing high concentrations of organic and
inorganic matter (Kurniawan et al., 2006).

6.2. Ultrafiltration
Ultrafiltration is a selective process utilizing pressures
up to 10 bar. This technique is efficient to remove
suspended matters either by direct filtration or with
biological treatment to replace sedimentation unit. It is
strongly dependant on the kind of material

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Mojiri et al.
Trends in Physical-Chemical Methods for Landfill Leachate Treatment

constituting the membrane. Syzdek and Ahlert (1984)

proposed that this process might prove to be useful as
a pre-treatment method for reverse osmosis. It could
be employed to eliminate the larger molecular weight
components of leachate that tend to foul reverse
osmosis membranes (Bohdziewicz et al., 2001;
Rautenbach et al., 1997). COD removal of 50% was
obtained by using ultrafiltration alone (Bohdziewicz et
al., 2001). Lastly, Tabet et al. (2002) reported that
ultrafiltration membranes have been successfully
employed in full scale membrane bioreactor plants by
combination of bioreactors and membrane technology.
High levels for landfill leachate treatment have been
obtained by using this method.

technique of back passing the concentrate into the

landfill is in the opinion of the authors not the best
option (Stegmann et al., 2005).
Unlike RO, NF has a looser membrane structure,
enabling higher fluxes and lower operating pressure
for the treatment of leachate (Kurniawan et al., 2006).
Ahn et al. (2002) stated that a landfill leachate
treatment plant in Korea was retrofitted to improve
treatment efficiency by employing integrated
membrane technique that was composed of membrane
bioreactor and reverse osmosis method. The removal
efficiencies of COD and NH3-N from young landfill
leachate were 96% and 97 %, respectively. Other
researchers stated that the removal of COD and NH3N from landfill leachate was 98% (Linde et al., 1995).

6.3. Nanofiltration (NF)

7. ION EXCHANGE
Nanofiltration (NF) has found a place in the removal
of recalcitrant organic compounds and heavy metals
from landfill leachate because of its unique properties
between ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO)
membranes. It has the ability to remove particles with
a molecular weight of higher than 300 Da also to
inorganic substances through electrostatic interactions
between the ions and membranes. Which allow
charged solutes smaller than the membrane pores to
be rejected, along with bigger neutral solutes and salts
the significance of this membrane lies in its surface
charges. As shown in Table 2, NF is also effective for
the removal of heavy metals because of the negatively
charged groups on the membrane. The application of
NF allows material dissolved in water to be separated
into monovalent and divalent ions (Kurniawan et al.,
2006).

Ion exchange is a reversible interchange of ions

between the solid and liquid phases where there is no
permanent change in the structure of the solid. This
treatment is capable of effectively removing the traces
of metal impurities to meet the increasingly strict
discharge standards in developed countries. Prior to
ion exchange, the leachate should first be subjected to
a biological treatment (Kurniawan et al., 2006).
The solid ion exchange particles can be classified as
natural-inorganic particles (zeolites) and syntheticorganic resins, which were developed from highmolecular-weight polyelectrolytes (Bashir et al.,
2010). Development of ion exchange resins and
characterization of naturally occurring ion exchange
materials has demonstrated a wide range of possible
applications of the technology in water and
wastewater treatment (Wang and Peng, 2010).
The ion-exchange technique offers a number of
benefits containing the ability to handle shock
loadings and operate over a wider range of
temperatures. Ion-exchange/adsorption processes can
be advanced as post treatment to a membrane bioreactor (MBR) due to the very high degree of
clarification possible. Further, sorption processes by
selective ion-exchangers are ideal candidates for
reduction of dissolved ammonia and phosphate to
near-zero levels provided that the sorbent is ammonia
and/or phosphate selective, cost effective and
amenable to efficient regeneration and reuse. Some of
the most popular and widely available natural ion
exchangers are zeolites, which consist of an
aluminosilicate molecular structure with weak cationic
bonding sites. Natural zeolites have been avoided in
high purity processes or where consistency is vital
because of irregularities and impurities of the
material. Zeolites are hydrated alumino silicates
comprising silica and aluminium tetrahedra which are

6.4. Reverse Osmosis (RO)

Reverse osmosis (RO) is one of the developments in
the last decade for leachate treatment is the. But in
contrast to the biological treatment it is a separation
process into two streams - one low contaminated
permeate stream and one highly contaminated
concentrate stream. If leachate from the acetic phase
has to be treated a biological pre-treatment may be
necessary for several reasons as increased
precipitation has to be expected, low molecules may
pass the membrane and fowling on the membrane
surface may be enhanced. The separation of
ammonium is often not sufficient during reverse
osmosis. The reduction of ammonia concentrations in
permeate may be increased by means of a two or
multiple step reverse osmosis. In some cases
ammonium is removed by means of a prestripping
process or a biological nitrification and denitrification
step. A disadvantage of RO is the production of the
liquid concentrate (about 20 % of the leachate). The

19

International Journal of Scientific Research in Environmental Sciences (IJSRES), 1(2), pp. 16-25, 2013

mutually bound by chemical covalent bonds with

common oxygen atoms (Mojiri, 2011).

9. ELECTROCHEMICAL TREATMENT
In recent years, electro-chemical ways were used for
treatment of organic materials having high toxicity
and low biological degradability. Electro-chemical
ways like electrocoagulation (EC), electro-oxidation
and electro-photo-oxidation were frequently applied
for treatment of wastewaters from textile, tannery and
oil industries. Treatment of landfill leachate via
electro-chemical ways is also another important
interest area. In most of the studies in this field,
especially the electro-oxidation method was examined
(Deng, 2007).

8. ADSORPTION
Adsorption is the most widely used technique for
the removal of recalcitrant organic compounds from
landfill leachate. Fundamentally, adsorption is a mass
transfer process by which a substance is transferred
from the liquid phase to the surface of a solid, and
becomes bound by physical and/or chemical
interactions (Kurniawan et al., 2006). The adsorption
of contaminants onto Activated Carbon in columns or
in powder form provides better reduction in COD
levels than the chemicals ways, whatever the initial
organic matter concentration (Table 3). The main
drawback is the need for frequent regeneration of
columns or an equivalently high consumption of
powdered activated carbon (PAC). Adsorption by
activated carbon has been used along with biological
treatment for effective treatment of landfill leachate.
Nonbiodegradable organics, inert COD and the color
may be reduced to acceptable levels for biologically
treated landfill leachate (Renou et al., 2008).
Adsorption technique is recognized as the efficient
and promising elementary approach in wastewater
treatment processes (Foo and Hameed, 2009). It is
used as a stage of integrated chemical-physicalbiological method for leachate treatment, or
simultaneously with a biological process. The most
commonly used adsorbent is granular activated carbon
or PAC (Mojiri, 2011).
The adsorption using granular activated carbon
(GAC) or powder activated carbon (PAC) has been
receiving a considerable attention newly for the
removal of organic and inorganic contaminants from
polluted wastewater because of its inherent physical
properties, large surface area, micro-porous structure,
high adsorption capacity and surface reactivity
(Kurniawan et al., 2006).
Rodriguez et al. (2004) studied PAC and different
resins efficiency in the reduction of nonbiodegradable organic matter from landfill leachate.
Activated carbon presented the highest adsorption
capacities with 85% COD decrease and a residual
COD of 200 mg L1 (Renou et al., 2008).

9.1. Electro oxidation

In recent years, the electrochemical oxidation
process has been shown to be promising for
wastewater treatment, mainly because of its
effectiveness and ease in operation, The process has a
great efficacy for the destruction of refractory
pollutants like cyanide, EDTA, aniline, and also for
color removal (Chiang et al., 1995).
10. CONLUSION
The landfill leachate treatment ways are physical,
chemical and biological ones which are used in
combinations. Physical/chemical treatments for the
landfill leachate are used in addition at the treatment
line (pre-treatment or last purification) or to treat a
specific pollutant. Physical/chemical treatments such
as Chemical precipitation, Chemical Oxidation,
CoagulationFlocculation, Membrane filtration, Ion
exchange, Adsorption, and Electrochemical treatment
were studied in this manuscript. The landfill leachate
properties, technical applicability and constraints,
effluent discharge alternatives, cost-effectiveness,
regulatory requirements and environmental impact are
important factors to selection of the most suitable
treatment technique for landfill leachate treatment.

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Mojiri et al.
Trends in Physical-Chemical Methods for Landfill Leachate Treatment

21

International Journal of Scientific Research in Environmental Sciences (IJSRES), 1(2), pp. 16-25, 2013

Table 2: Removal of organic and inorganic compounds using NF or RO ( Kurniawan et al., 2006)
Location of Landfill

Type
of
Membrane

Species

NA (Not Available)

Kind
of
Process
NF

NTR-7250

Odayeri (Turkey)
Mustankorkea (Finland)
Spillepeng (Sweden)

NF
NF
NF

SW
Desal 5-DL
AFC-30

Chung
Nam
(South
Korea)
Yachiyo (Japan)
Pietramelina (Italy)

RO
RO

SW-4040
DT

RO

SW30-2521

Hedeskoga (Sweden)
Spillepeng (Sweden)
Wijster (Holland)
Ihlenberg (Germany)

RO
RO
RO
NF
RO

Lipowka (Poland)

Pressure
(bar)

Initial concentration (mg/L)

COD

NH3-N

Metal

BOD

BOD/COD

Cr(III)
Cu(II)
Pb(II)
NA
NA
Pb(II)
Zn(II)
Cd(II)
NA
Mn(II)

NA

NA

NA

NA

25
6-8
20

3000
920
2000

950
220
NA

NA
84
NA

NA
9-11

1500
97.4

1400
33.7

0.69
0.23
0.03
NA
NA
0.61
0.50
0.03
NA
4.77

52

3840

NA

AFC99
NA
NA
NA

Cd(II)
Zn(II)
Cu(II)
Cr(III)
NA
NA
NA

SS

NA

40
30
40
36-60
NA
27.6

1254
925
335
1797
170000
1780

541
280
140
336
3350
743

pH

Rejection rates (%)

COD

NH3-N

Metal

NA

NA

NA

NA
0.40
NA

NA
7.6
NA

89
66
NA

72
50
NA

450
5

0.30
0.05

NA
6

97
100

96
98

100
99
93
NA
NA
97
88
94
NA
100

0.50

1200

0.31

98

NA

0.02
NA
NA
0.25
NA
NA

125
NA
NA
54
510
331

0.10
NA
NA
0.03
0.03
0.28

7
6.5
6.5
7.7
6.4
7-8

95
98
98
99
96
97

82
98
98
100
58
NA

100
97
99
NA
NA
NA
98
NA
NA

Table 3: Treatment effectiveness of landfill leachate with the use of adsorption (Renou et al., 2008)
COD (mg.L-1)
879-940
640
108
800-2000

BOD/COD
0.03
0.06
0.04-0.07

pH
7.5
8
-

From
Landfill
Landfill
Landfill
Landfill

625
9500
1533-2580
10,750-18,420

0.3
0.03-0.04
0.55

7.9
7
7.5-9.4
7.7-8.2

7000
716-1765

7
7.58-7.60

Landfill
Landfill
Landfill
Landfill
Landfill leachate +
Municipal sewage
Synthetic wastewater
Pilot plant

Adsorbent
Granular activated carbon (columns)
Granular activated carbon (columns)
Powdered activated carbon
Activated carbon (concentration range
210 g L1)
Powdered activated carbon (2 g L1)
Peat
Powdered activated carbon (2 g L1)
CaCO3 (particle size range 24 mm)
Powdered
activated
carbon
(concentration range 0.13.5 g L1)
Powdered activated carbon (02 g L1)
Granular activated carbon and resins

Removal (%)
91 COD
96 TOC
55-77 color
69 COD
38 COD
90 COD
90 COD
85 non-biodegradable
COD (GAC)
59 non-biodegradable
COD (resin)

Leachate using Powdered Activated Carbon

Augmented Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR)
Technology. Separation Science and Technology,
46: 112.
Bashir, MJK, Aziz HA, Yusoff MS, Adlan MN
(2010). Application of response surface
methodology (RSM) for optimization of
ammoniacal nitrogen removal from semiaerobic landfill leachate using ion exchange
resin. Desalination, 254: 154-161.
Bohdziewicz J, Bodzek M, Gorska J (2001).
Application of pressure-driven membrane
techniques to biological treatment of landfill
leachate. Process Biochemistry, 36: 641-646.
Chiang LC, Chang JE, Wen TC (1995). Indirect
Oxidation Effect in Electrochemical Oxidation
Treatment of Landfill Leachate. Wat. Res., 29
(2): 671-678.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to acknowledge the University
Sains Malaysia (USM) for provision of research grant
to conduct this work, and their supports.
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Mojiri et al.
Trends in Physical-Chemical Methods for Landfill Leachate Treatment

Amin Mojiri is a PhD candidate in environmental engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Universiti
Sains Malaysia (USM), Pulau Pinang. He is fellowship holder and research assistant at the School of Civil
Engineering (USM). He is a member of Young Researchers Club, Islamic Azad University, Iran. He is
editor and reviewer of some international journals. His area of specialization is waste management, waste
recycling, wastewater treatment, wastewater recycling, and soil pollutions.

Dr Aziz is a Professor in environmental engineering at the School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Sains
Malaysia. Dr. Aziz received his Ph.D in civil engineering (environmental engineering) from University of
Strathclyde, Scotland in 1992. He has published over 200 refereed articles in professional
journals/proceedings and currently sits as the Editorial Board Member for 8 International journals. Dr
Aziz's research has focused on alleviating problems associated with water pollution issues from industrial
wastewater discharge and solid waste management via landfilling, especially on leachate pollution. He
also interests in biodegradation and bioremediation of oil spills.

Dr. Shuokr Qarani Aziz is a lecturer in the Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering,
University of Salahaddin-Erbil, Iraq. He received B.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering and M.Sc. in Sanitary
Engineering from University of Salahaddin-Erbil, Iraq; Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia. He is editor and reviewer of some international journals. His
area of specialization is Water Supply Engineering, Wastewater Engineering, Solid Waste Management,
and Noise Pollution.

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