The OxyStrip System Takes on Leachate . . . and Wins
This indestructible air stripper has taken on iron, mud, sewage and now, leachate!!
Theia has been helping a consulting engineer that is well known in the Solid Waste Industry with the design of an upgrade to an existing leachate treatment system. The existing system cannot address the high Ammonia levels generated in the leachate as well as some of the metals present in the leachate.
While the metals treatment is relatively straightforward, the ammonia presents a bit of a challenge as the levels are very high though they vary significantly. Theia offers a unique approach to this problem which allows the customer to address these high levels without the large capital expenditures while keeping the operating costs down as well.
One part of this solution was the OxyStrip System. While stripping Ammonia is nothing new, it is not used for leachate treatment all that often due to the fragile nature of most air stripping systems making them ill-suited to take on such a difficult waste-stream. Of course, this is not an issue for the OxyStrip System. Our unique stripping system can tolerate dissolved or suspended solids well into the percent solids range making this application just another day on the job for the Theia team.
A specially designed pilot skid was shipped to the site so that it could be hooked to the landfill’s electrical system and tested prior to our personnel and our customer arriving on the site.
Leachate was drawn from a corner of the existing storage and aeration lagoon and pumped to the inlet storage tank for the pilot system. The landfill operator had some particularly nasty leachate that had been held due to discharge issues. This leachate was released directly to where our pump was withdrawing the leachate.
Process: the treatment process was designed to be very simple and easy to control. The inlet tank was set up as a mixing tank where the leachate was pumped in and the pH brought up to specific levels. {Optimum pH levels for this process is considered to be between 11.0 and 11.5}.
Theia and our customer ran tests up and down the pH range and put together a report for the customer. The system was able to remove a significant mass of the ammonia while running effortlessly. Based on the pilot test data, a full scale system would be capable or removing 85-98% of the ammonia while never clogging or fouling.
While the pilot test was a success story, no decision has been made by the customer on the full scale design for this landfill. The test also proved once again that nothing stops or even slows down the OxyStrip system.
