ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the effectiveness of reverse osmosis (RO) treatment in removing chlorinated hydrocarbons and pesticides from a hazardous waste leachate. RO is a unit process that is used to separate solute from solvent. RO concentrates and isolates the contaminants in the solution, reducing the volume which must be treated. The use of a low pressure reverse osmosis system combined with a polyamide thin film composite membrane was shown to be successful for the removal of chlorinated hydrocarbons and pesticides from a hazardous waste leachate. The polyamide membrane was found to be superior to the cellulose acetate membrane in both removal of the contaminants and reduction of volume of the contaminated leachate. The column leachate was stored in capped five gallon glass jars in a hood until sufficient volume had accumulated for an experiment. The primary feed solution used in the RO experiments consisted of approximately 50 gallons of composited column leachate.
