Mitigation of organic compound movement in landfills by shredded tires

Abstract

This paper evaluates the feasibility of using shredded tires for removal of organic compounds from landfill leachate. From the batch sorption isotherm experiments, tire chips were found to have 1.4% to 5.6% of the sorption capacity of granular activated carbon on a volume basis. The sorption equilibrium occurred within 2 days for 0.6‐, 1.3‐, and 2.5‐cm size tire chips. The capacity of tire chips to adsorb organic compounds in a multisolute system was almost equal to that in single‐solute systems. Only 3.4% to 7.9% of the organic compounds sorbed in tire chips were desorbed. A design method was proposed to estimate the thickness of a tire layer required for a target organic compound removal from the landfill leachate based on a structure‐activity relationship obtained from laboratory tests.