Abstract

Aims: Comparing to strong traditional oxidation, the persulfate and sulfate radicals was characterized by relatively low cost and easy application. The present study aimed to investigate the performance of sulfate radical-based advanced oxidation process (SR-AOP) for pretreatment of compost leachate in order to improvement of its biodegradability. Materials and Methods: The sulfate radicals was used for pretreatment of compost leachate in the batch reactor followed by aerobic and anaerobic biological reactors. Results: The results of combination of SR-AOP with biological treatment showed that BOD5/COD ratio was increase. However, the different trend was observed in COD removal by sequencing batch reactor (SBR) and anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR). Comparing to SR-AOP with ASBR, the SR-AOP with SBR substantially improved final COD removal efficiency up to 70. Although pretreatment of compost leachate with the SR-AOP clearly improved the BOD5/COD ratio of entering raw leachate into ASBR (from 0.4 to 0.65), but, the COD removal efficiency was ranging between 25 and 27. Conclusion: Based on the results, it can be concluded that the BOD5/COD ratio cannot be suggested as biodegradability improvement indicator without considerations of changing of substrate nature during pretreatment. © 2019 International Journal of Environmental Health Engineering | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow.