Leachate from a sanitary landfill site in Chengdu, China is treated using a hybrid-UASB reactor at pilot scale. H2S, resulting from the anaerobic bioconversion process of sulfate-reducing bacteria（SRB）, inhibits the growth and activity of methane-producing bacteria（MPB）and poses serious problems of pollution, so FeCl3is used for H2S removal. The results show that the system performs well in the treatment process. COD removal generally increases with the increase in the organic loading rate（OLR）, while the sulfate removal decreases slowly. As the OLR is higher than 7 kgCOD/（m3·d）, both COD and sulfate removal tend to be stable. When the reactor is operated at the design load of 9 kgCOD/（m3·d）, COD and sulfate removal remain about 79% and 91%, respectively. At the same time, the percentage of COD removed by SRB（CODSRB）also decreases from 8.9% to 4.0%. With FeCl3 addition, COD removal increases to 83%, while sulfate removal and CODSRBfurther decrease to 89% and 1.89%, respectively. According to the mass balance, nearly 82% of the sulfur is prevented from converting into H2S. Moreover, when the FeCl3 dosage is more than 1.6 g/L leachate, H2S can be removed totally from the biogas. Therefore, the application of FeCl3 for H2S removal in leachate treatment using the UASB reactor is very suitable and viable.
