Coagulation/Fenton oxidation combined treatment of compost leachate using quince seed mucilage as an effective biocoagulant

In this study, quince seed mucilage (QSM) has been introduced as a novel biocoagulant for the pretreatment of leachate obtained from a composting facility. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to study and optimize the effect of pH, QSM dosage and time on the coagulation performance. At the optimum conditions using 1370 mg L^-1 of QSM at pH 3.8 and 29 min, 45.0% COD reduction was achieved in the coagulation-flocculation (CF) stage. After CF pretreatment stage, Fenton oxidation (FO) process was applied on the leachate. Maximum COD reduction was obtained at pH 2.5, H₂O₂ concentration of 190 mM, and Fe²⁺ concentration of 1.64 mM. At the optimum conditions of the combined treatment process, up to 84.4% COD, 99.4% turbidity and 98.2% BOD were removed. The combined CF/FO process using QSM in the CF stage was found to be an effective method for the treatment of compost leachate.