Distribution and fate of inorganic and organic arsenic species in landfill leachates and biogases.

The arsenic release from landfills requires special attention both due to its potential toxicity and due to the increasing global municipal solid waste production. The determination of arsenic species in both leachates and biogases has been performed in this work to determine the fate of arsenic in landfills. Both inorganic and methylated arsenic species occur in leachates with concentrations varying from 0.1 to 80 microg As L(-1). These species are representative of the leachate arsenic composition, as the mean recovery obtained for the speciation analyses is 67% of the total arsenic determined in elementary analyses. In biogases, both methylated and ethylated volatile arsenic species have been identified and semiquantified (0-15 microg As m(-3)). The landfill monitoring has emphasized close relationships between the concentrations of mono-, di-, and tri-methylated arsenic compounds in leachates. A biomethylation pathway has thus been proposed as a source of these methylated compounds in the leachates from waste arsenic, which is supposed to be in major part under inorganic forms. In addition, peralkylation mechanisms of both biomethylation and bioethylation have been suggested to explain the occurrence of the identified volatile species. This combined speciation approach provides a qualitative and quantitative characterization of the potential emissions of arsenic from domestic waste disposal in landfills. This work highlights the possible formation of less harmful organoarsenic species in both leachates and biogases during the waste degradation process.