A moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR), where biomass is attached to small carrier elements that move freely along with the water in the reactor, has been tested for organic matter removal at five different organic loading rates. A lab-scale reactor with a volume of 2L was built and fed continuously with synthetic wastewater. The reactor was filled with the Kaldnes biomedia K1 which is used in the patented Kaldnes Moving Bed^™ biofilm process at 50% of the volume of empty reactor. Hydraulic retention times (HRT) in the reactor and in the settler were adjusted to between 8 and 4 hours, respectively. A start-up period of about 4 weeks for biofilm growth on the carrier was followed by 10 weeks of testing period. By changing the wastewater composition, the operation of the system was adjusted, one after the other, to five different organic loading rates: 6, 12, 24, 48 and 96 g COD/m² .d. Organic removal efficiency decreased with increasing organic loading rate, ranging from 95.1%, 94.9%, 89.3%, 68.7% and 45.2% as the organic loading rate was increased form 6 to 96 g COD/m² .d. In the MBRR reactor, the biofilm reached an average concentration of 3.28 kg TSS/m³ at the highest organic loading rate. The ratio between the TSS production and the total COD removal was 0.12 kg TSS/kg total COD at an influent total COD of 500 mg/l.

Landfill is a common solution for the final disposal of municipal solid waste in Turkey. In recent years, studies of landfill leachate treatment by Fenton process have indicated that these methods can effectively reduce concentrations of organic contaminants and colour. The aim of this study is to investigate the removal efficiencies of colour and organic matter as COD from young municipal landfill leachate and the effect of operating conditions such as initial pH and Fenton’s reagent dosage. Leachate was collected from municipal sanitary landfill located in city of Konya, Turkey. The main characteristics of the leachate were: pH = 7.25, colour = 3510 ptCo, COD = 38200 mgL⁻¹, BOD₅ = 22000 mgL⁻¹, ratio of BOD₅/COD was 0.58 and alkalinity as CaCO₃ = 10250 mgL⁻¹. It is observed that presenting a high value of COD and BOD₅ and the rate of BOD₅/COD values indicate that the leachate can be defined as young. The treatment of the leachate by Fenton process was carried out in a batch reactor. Under the optimal operation conditions (initial pH = 3, 2000 mgL⁻¹ Fe²⁺ and 5000 mgL⁻¹ H₂O₂), 55.9% of the initial COD and 89.4% colour were removed.