Observations of the impacts of some landfill leachates with clays

Abstract

Compacted day liners are common, major, components of landfill leachate (fluid) containment systems. This is sensible, but knowledge and understanding of the long-term performance and behaviour of clay mineral/ landfill leachate systems remain very limited. The authors studied the reactions of clay soil with leachate simulants related to three different climates and waste cultures. The clay came from a Tertiary sequence near Melbourne, Australia, a type in common use locally for landfill engineering. X-ray diffraction was used to observe mineralogical change in 3 mm clay plugs caused by reactions with the leachate simulants. Changes in hydraulic conductivity were also measured. The results s..