Energy and resource recovery from landfill leachate

Abstract

Landfill leachate contains a significant proportion of pollutants, organic matter, and heavy metals which negatively affect the surrounding ecosystem, groundwater, and soil. Leachate has the potential to generate energy and produce other valuable products such as biogas, bio-hydrogen, and microalgae for biofuel production. However, there is a need to explore various processes such as anaerobic digestion (AD), microbial processes for fuel cells, cultivation of microalgae, and extraction of heavy metals. On the basis of this, these processes have been explored to examine various valuable products that can be recovered from leachate and challenges related to these processes are also discussed. AD and microbial fuel cells are processes that tend to produce energy sources such as biomethane and electricity, respectively. Similarly, the cultivation of microalgae in leachate is the main source to capture carbon dioxide gas to a great extent. These processes aim to recover energy and other chemical products further can be developed in the future socially and economically.