Abstract

In this work, the landfill leachate of Fez city (Morocco) is characterized physicochemically and the feasibility to apply a Fenton process is evaluated. A design of experiments based on Box-Behnken combined with a response surface methodology was used to assess the effect of three operating variables (pH, Fe2+ and H2O2 dosages) on two target responses: COD and color removal. The results of the analysis of variances demonstrate that both responses are significantly affected by Fe2+ dosage and pH. Statistical and graphical analyses show that maximum efficiencies of 85% and 96% are obtained in terms of COD and color removal, respectively, when operating conditions are set in pH = 2.8, [Fe2+] = 1621 mg L-1 and [H2O2] = 2500 mg L-1.