Evaluation of the final effluent of a sanitary landfill using multivariate analysis

Abstract

Leachate generated by the decomposition of waste in landfills is one of the major negative impacts produced by this type of enterprise, and has been being an object of many studies that aim the knowledge of the characteristics and the behavior of this effluent, allowing to develop actions that reduce its impact in the environment. In order to verify the physicochemical parameters that influence the most in the final effluent, the main objective of this work is to evaluate and interpret the physical, chemical and biological parameters of the final effluent of the effluent treatment system of the landfill of the municipality of Lages-SC, utilizing multivariate statistical approaches – Factorial Analysis (FA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The data are from the analyzes of the leachate carried out in the period of October of 2015 and September of 2016. It was verified that the first four factors explain, approximately, 69% of the variability of the data. PC1 explained 25.93% of the variability, with the most expressive elements being toluene, dissolved iron, BOD, COD, DO and Cd; PC2 explains 17.67% of the total variability of the data, and had its most expressive variables were: CN-, dissolved copper and Cr6. The application of multivariate statistical analysis has shown to be effective, being ideal for analyzes of large datasets and presentation of results.