LACHAETTE — landfill leachate treatment (application case of ARBOK Puri)

Overview

It is widely held that no technology exists capable of cleaning municipal landfills. That conclusion comes from the physics and chemistry of landfill leachate: the liquid formed at municipal solid waste landfills is no longer water in any conventional sense — it is a chemical-biological poison in which H₂O is merely the transport medium. It is not wastewater and not industrial effluent. A single sip is enough to put a person in intensive care or on an autopsy table.

Leachate cannot be filtered — it can only be physically separated. ARBOK Puri places the water under deep vacuum, lowering its boiling point to near ambient temperature. Only the H₂O molecule can evaporate; ions, salts, ammonium, persistent organics and radionuclides physically cannot enter the vapor phase and remain in the residue, which is extracted dry — not as brine and not as liquid concentrate. What made the water deadly turns out to be a product with market value, which is what makes landfill cleanup with ARBOK Puri economically self-sustaining. The source states there are no comparable solutions anywhere in the world.

Applications

On-site treatment of landfill leachate at municipal solid waste sites, completely and immediately, in particular during rainy seasons and snowmelt when storage ponds overflow. Treatment of leachate of any strength — from weak influent to concentrate of extreme toxicity — with stable output water quality.

Output water uses: discharge to rivers without risk of destroying the ecosystem, irrigation, municipal and technical needs. The water does not kill fish and does not poison soils.

Recovered solid fraction: salts, ammonium compounds, chemical components and elements with market value, suitable for storage, transport and processing.

Operating Principle

Water is placed under deep vacuum, where its boiling point falls to ambient temperature. Only the H₂O molecule is able to evaporate. Everything else — ions, salts, ammonium, persistent organics, radionuclides — physically cannot pass into vapor and stays behind. Purification is achieved by phase separation, not by trapping contaminants.

Under deep vacuum all organic life ceases to exist. Bacteria, viruses and protozoa die instantly — they rupture from within like soap bubbles. The absence of oxygen, dissolved gases and a nutrient medium completes the process. Nothing is suppressed or disinfected: biology is destroyed physically. BOD₅ therefore falls to drinking-water level by the biological criterion, and the water no longer blooms or degrades in storage because it is no longer a medium for life.

Chemically the result is harsher still. COD, which was in the tens of thousands of mg O₂/L, tends to zero at the outlet because the organic phase does not evaporate. Ammonium and heavy-metal salts remain entirely in the residue: 0 in water, 100% in the solid fraction. The residue is extracted from the unit dry.

Why the incumbent methods fail (as stated in the source).

• Reverse osmosis recovers 30–40% of the water; the remaining 60–70% becomes concentrate — a double or triple concentration of the poison, which cannot be discharged, cannot be treated further and cannot be stored indefinitely. In practice it is hauled tens or hundreds of kilometres away, or more often sprayed back onto the landfill body, raising the concentration again. The source calls this extinguishing a fire with gasoline.
• Ultrafiltration retains only what has size — suspension, flocs, colloids, bacteria. Everything genuinely dangerous — ions, salts, ammonium, dissolved toxins — passes through unresisted. The output is visually clean water that remains chemically lethal. That is masking, not treatment.
• Biological methods either die immediately in the toxicity or turn into an engineering nightmare: cascades of anaerobic and aerobic reactors, fine pH and temperature control, constant reagent dosing, months of commissioning. Even under ideal conditions biology does not destroy the poison — it partially transforms the organics and leaves ammonium and metal ions untouched. Any jump in composition collapses the system.
• UV irradiation has no bearing on the problem: light does not react with ions, does not destroy salts and does not affect chemically stable toxins. UV on leachate is a flashlight shone into acid.

Key Parameters

Leachate at the inlet

| Parameter | Value | Regulatory limit cited | Excess |

|---|---|---|---|

| COD | 20,000–50,000 mg O₂/L | ≤125 mg O₂/L to surface waters; ~30 mg O₂/L for fishery waters | 160–1,600× |

| BOD₅ | 2,000–20,000 mg O₂/L | ≤25 mg O₂/L | 80–800× |

| Ammonium NH₄⁺ | 500–5,000 mg/L | 0.5–2 mg/L | hundreds to thousands of times |

Also present: dissolved heavy-metal salts (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury in chemically stable form), persistent organic toxins, phenols, chlorinated organics, microplastics, decomposition products of plastics and pharmaceuticals.

> Русская часть документа даёт БПК₅ как «тысячи и десятки тысяч мг O₂/л», английская — как 2,000–20,000 мг O₂/л. Обе формулировки приведены.

Water at the outlet

| Parameter | Value |

|---|---|

| BOD₅ | <1–2 mg O₂/L — effectively drinking-water level by the biological criterion |

| COD | a few mg O₂/L, far below regulatory limits; tends to zero |

| Ammonium | completely absent from the water |

| Heavy metals and remaining chemistry | 0 in water, 100% in the solid fraction |

Comparison figures

| Parameter | Value |

|---|---|

| RO water recovery on leachate | 30–40%; 60–70% becomes concentrate |

| Soil cover layers in landfill construction | 2–3 m of soil between waste layers |

| Distance leachate is hauled when ponds overflow | 60–100 km (RU); tens to hundreds of kilometres (EN) |

| Share of world population living between bad and very bad solutions | 90–95% |

Throughput, energy consumption and unit format for the leachate configuration: [требует уточнения из базы]

Architecture and Components

Deep-vacuum evaporation unit with dry extraction of the solid residue. The source describes the process but gives no component-level specification.

Equipment layout, vacuum system, condensation stage and residue handling hardware: [требует уточнения из базы] — see ARBOK PURI.

Advantages

Physical rather than cosmetic solution: the poison is destroyed and separated instead of being concentrated and moved. No concentrate and no brine — the residue leaves the unit dry, convenient for storage, transport and processing. Complete removal of the dissolved phase, which is what makes leachate lethal and what filtration cannot touch. Total physical destruction of the biological component under vacuum, without disinfectants. Output water of stable quality regardless of whether the influent was weak leachate or an extremely toxic concentrate. Treatment on site, immediately, with no hauling and no deferral of the problem. Salts, ammonium compounds and chemical elements in the residue have market value, making the cleanup economically self-sustaining.

Integrations

[требует уточнения из базы]

Base technology: ARBOK PURI (ARBOK Evaporation).

Deployment & Operation

On-site treatment at the landfill, processing the leachate completely and immediately rather than accumulating it in storage ponds. Particularly required in rainy seasons and during snowmelt, when ponds overflow and leachate starts being trucked 60–100 km at the cost of money, fuel and new risks.

Installation procedure, footprint, staffing and service requirements: [требует уточнения из базы]

TRL

TRL 9 — проставлен Михаилом 2026-08-06.

Market Potential

The source gives no market sizing. Its scope statement: in most of the world the poison is not even collected; where regulations are stricter, landfill bodies are lined with polymer membranes and the leachate flows into storage ponds — large black lakes standing for years in the open as monuments to deferred catastrophe. Where membranes are absent or damaged, leachate migrates into soil, groundwater, rivers and lakes. The more rational countries rely either on strict waste sorting with subsequent recycling, or on incineration. The result is that 90–95% of the planet's population lives between bad and very bad solutions.

Quantified market sizing: [требует уточнения из базы]

Typical Project Economics

The source states that recovery of salts, ammonium compounds and chemical elements from the residue makes landfill cleanup with ARBOK Puri economically self-sustaining, and that the current alternative — hauling leachate 60–100 km — consumes money and fuel from already shrinking municipal budgets.

Risk Factors

Nature of the feedstock. Leachate is not "dirty water" but a chemically aggressive medium of unpredictable composition, which changes from season to season, from rain to frost, with the age of the landfill and even with consumption fashion. Any treatment system must handle that variability.

Legacy of the incumbent practice. Concentrate produced by existing RO installations cannot be discharged, treated further or stored indefinitely; spraying it back onto the landfill body restarts the poison cycle at higher concentration.

Institutional resistance. The source states plainly that resistance will be fierce — not from nature, which will recover, but from those who have claimed for too long that no alternative exists, and that officials and regulators repeating that mantra think in membranes and paper limits without understanding the physics, chemistry or consequences. Accepting the technology requires admitting that everything done before was a mistake.

Technical and operational risk factors of the unit itself: [требует уточнения из базы]

Related Technologies

ARBOK PURI · ARBOK MedZWD · Arbok-ZWD Gasification · ARBOK-CHEMILAKE-PURI · Vacuum Osmosis · ARBOK Low-Carbon Water