Abatement of the ecotoxicological risk of landfill leachate by heterogeneous Fenton-like oxidation

Landfill leachates are highly contaminated liquid waste, and their treatment and detoxification are a challenging task. The current system of ecotoxicological risk assessment is complex and time-consuming. It is of fundamental importance to develop simpler and faster tools for the evaluation of the treated liquid waste and for an easier preliminary screening of the most active catalytic formulation/reaction conditions of the Fenton-like process. Here, several analytical techniques have been used for the assessment of the reduction of toxicity of the landfill leachate after Fenton process over copper-zirconia catalyst (ZrCu). Ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy and absorbable organic halogens (AOX) analysis have been coupled to achieve further insight into the degradation of contaminants. In addition, for the first time, the qualitative abatement of organic compounds is monitored through proton nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H NMR) analysis, providing a new method for evaluating the effectiveness of the treatment. Spectroscopic techniques reveal that the Fenton process induces a significant abatement of the aromatic and halogen compounds (51%) in the landfill leachate with a reduction of the toxicity that has been confirmed by ecotoxicological test with algae. These results validate the investigated tool for a simple rapid preliminary evaluation of the detoxification efficacy.