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Anaerobic co-digestion of landfill leachate and acid mine drainage using up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor

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Abstract

A laboratory-scale up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor was developed and constructed for the treatment of landfill leachate and acid mine drainage (AMD). The removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), sulfate, and metal ions was studied. The maximum COD and sulfate removal efficiency reached 75% and 69%, respectively, during the start-up phase of the UASB. The hydraulic retention time (HRT) had a significant influence on the system. The maximum removal efficiency for COD and sulfate reached 83% and 78%, respectively, at an HRT of 20 h. The methane production process competed with the sulfate reduction process in the UASB. The fractionation of metals in the sludge was analyzed to facilitate metal recovery in a later processing stage. The most abundant sulfate-reducing bacteria was Desulfobulbus, and the methanogen archaeal community in the reactor was mainly composed of Methanobacterium.

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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41772361 and U19A20108).

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SZ and ZY were major contributors in writing the manuscript. JW, SP, and TC edited and examined the papers seriously. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhengbo Yue.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Ta Yeong Wu

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Zhou, S., Wang, J., Peng, S. et al. Anaerobic co-digestion of landfill leachate and acid mine drainage using up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 8498–8506 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11207-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11207-y

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