Occurrence of perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) in leachate, surface water and sediment collected from Tay Mo landfill and surrounding areas

Cite this paper: Vietnam J. Chem., 2021, 59(2), 239-246 Article 
DOI: 10.1002/vjch.202000157 
239 Wiley Online Library © 2021 Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi & Wiley-VCH GmbH 
Occurrence of perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) 
in leachate, surface water and sediment collected from Tay Mo landfill 
and surrounding areas 
Nguyen Thuy Ngoc, Phung Thi Vi, Pham Hung Viet, Duong Hong Anh
* 
 Research Centre for Environmental Technology and Sustainable Development (CETASD), 
VNU University of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi 10000, Viet Nam 
Key Laboratory of Analytical Technology for Environmental Quality and Food Safety Control (KLATEFOS), 
VNU University of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi 10000, Viet Nam 
Submitted September 11, 2020; Accepted February 19, 2021 
Abstract 
The municipal landfill is considered to be a potential source of different environmental contaminants derived from 
consumer goods, including perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs). Twenty-four leachate, surface water samples and twenty-
four sediment samples collected at Tay Mo landfill (Hanoi, Vietnam) and surrounding areas were analysed for sixteen 
PFCs. Total concentrations of PFCs in leachate and surface water ranged from 103 to 328 ng/L (mean: 161 ng/L) at Tay 
Mo landfill, 19.1-22.4 ng/L (mean: 20.7 ng/L) in ponds nearby the landfill, 5.19-6.96 ng/L (mean: 5.96 ng/L) in Nhue 
River around the landfill, 5.57-12.7 ng/L (mean: 9.00 ng/L) in the upstream and 3.81-11.5 ng/L (mean: 7.14 ng/L) in the 
downstream. The total concentrations of PFCs in landfill sediment which ranged from 3.52 to 6.70 ng/g (mean: 5 ng/g) 
was 3-4 times higher than those in sediment taken from Nhue River and the ponds around the landfill. The dominating 
detected compounds were short-chain perfluorinated alkyl substances like PFOA, PFHxA, PFHpA in water, and PFOS, 
PFBS in sediment. 
Keywords. PFCs, leachate, Tay Mo municipal landfill. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
In 2009, a number of perfluorinated chemicals 
(PFCs) were included in the list of persistent organic 
pollutants (POPs) that need to be monitored, 
restricted, and even banned under the Stockholm 
Convention. Due to their both lipophilic and 
hydrophilic properties, PFCs have been used since 
the 1950s
[1,2]
 for the surface treatment of furniture. 
There are numerous applications of PFCs in 
domestic and industrial activities such as 
impregnation or coating agents on the surface of 
carpets, leather, being used in textile and garment 
products, paper and wrapping paper, metal surface, 
cleaning products, and some types of plastic, 
insecticides, etc.
[3]
 After being used, along with 
waste, the PFCs will be discharged into the 
surrounding environment and found in most 
environmental objects like water, soil, biota and the 
food chain.
[1,2,4]
 To date, the data on PFCs in 
Vietnam environment is still limited, focusing on 
surface water, sediment and freshwater fish, etc.
[1,4,5]
The municipal dumping site is a waste collection 
site of consumer goods being potential 
contamination sources of PFCs such as carpets, 
upholstery, garments, leather products, wrapping 
paper, etc. The landfill technology, which is widely 
applied in Vietnam, is the decomposition method of 
waste material with the least energy consumption. 
During the decomposition process, consequently 
undesirable pollutants such as PFCs can be released 
into leachate owning the risk of contamination for 
the surrounding environment, especially surface 
water and groundwater.
[6]
 While a considerable 
number of studies on the occurrence of PFCs have 
been conducted in landfills in many countries
[7]
, 
investigations in Vietnam are still minimal. Joo Woo 
Kim et al. reported the occurrence of PFCs in one 
leachate and nine river water samples around Nam 
Son landfill since 2011
[8]
 and N.H. Lam investigated 
levels of PFCs in samples around landfills in Ho Chi 
Minh City (HCMC) in 2017.
[4]
 Studies on municipal 
dumping sites in the USA, Europe indicated that 
PFCs were detected in the leachate at concentrations 
ranging from hundreds to thousands of ng/L at sites 
where have been closed for 2-4 decades.
[7]
 The Tay 
Mo landfill has been one of domestic waste sites in 
Hanoi operating for 3 years from 1997 to 2000. At 
that time, the leachate treatment system was not 
worked effectively, even not used. At present, 
Vietnam Journal of Chemistry Duong Hong Anh et al. 
© 2021 Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi & Wiley-VCH GmbH www.vjc.wiley-vch.de 240 
residual household waste has been still piled up to 
become open-air huge garbage piles in few areas. 
Accordingly, this site can be a potential source 
which releases pollutants into the surrounding 
environment. In this study, leachate, surface water 
and sediment samples were collected at the Tay Mo 
landfill, nearby ponds, Nhue River at the positions in 
the front, near and the back of the site to elucidate 
the occurrence and level contamination of PFCs in 
the environment around this garbage dump that has 
closed for 20 years. 
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 
2.1. Studied area and sampling location 
The Tay Mo landfill with an area of 4.9 ha which 
located about 10 km west of the center of Hanoi was 
operated from 1997 to 2000 and received about 
1,400 tons of waste per day.
[9]
 In the 1990s, the 
primary treatment and disposal method for the city's 
domestic waste was landfills. At those landfills, 
leachate was hardly treated or only treated by old 
and inefficient technologies. Because leachate from 
the landfill can be washed away with rainwater, it is 
unavoidable that a lot of toxic substances from 
leachate can be dispersed into the surrounding 
environment. Currently, the Tay Mo landfill has 
stopped working, but the amount of garbage in the 
past is still piled up. At present, next to this closed 
landfill,  ... n Tay 
Mo landfill on the presence of PFCs in water 
samples taken in Nhue River at the time of sampling 
(dry season) was not observed. At the landfill and 
two ponds next to there, PFOA and PFOS were 
detected with the detection frequency of 100 %. For 
surface water samples collected from Nhue River, 
while PFOS was found at a lower frequency (61 %), 
PFOA was observed in all samples and had the 
highest concentration among PFCs. The PFCs 
concentrations in Nhue River water were similar to 
the results obtained in our previous studies on the 
wastewater in the drainage system in central Hanoi 
(Kim Nguu River, To Lich River, Yen So Lake) 
with the total concentration of PFCs ranging from 4 
to 10 ng/L in the dry season and there was no 
difference between upstream and downstream.
[13]
Although there are seven municipal wastewater 
treatment plants which have currently worked in 
Hanoi, it is the fact that approximately three fourth 
of wastewater amount from domestic activities and 
production has been discharged directly into this 
river and lake systems without sufficient treatment. 
Figure 5: Total concentration of PFCs in leachate, surface water and sediment 
at Tay Mo landfill compared to other investigated areas 
At the Tay Mo landfill, the average total 
concentrations of PFCs found in sediment (5 ng/g) 
were three- to four-fold greater than those in Nhue 
river (1.57 ng/g) and the ponds surrounding the 
landfill (1.34 ng/g), respectively. However, the 
comparison within result sets showed no statistically 
meaningful difference between samples collected at 
the landfill and other investigation areas. 
Analysis results indicated that, despite being 
closed, the Tay Mo landfill might be a potential 
source of PFCs that pre-existed or emerged by the 
decomposition of residual waste, probably affecting 
closed water bodies (like ponds) next to there. 
3.4. Comparison of PFCs concentrations in 
wastewater and sediment from different dumping 
sites 
A variety of data on PFCs at landfill obtained in this 
study and other publications are summarized in table 
2. The presence of PFCs in the wastewater and 
leachate is of great concern in many countries 
around the world, but in Vietnam, the data of PFCs 
in wastewater and leachate is still limited. The first 
literature published by J. W. Kim et al. in 2012
[8]
showed that the total concentration of PFCs, PFOA 
and PFOS in leachate in Nam Son landfill in Hanoi 
were 360, 100 and 11 ng/L, respectively. The Nam 
Son landfill was put into operation after the Tay Mo 
Vietnam Journal of Chemistry Duong Hong Anh et al. 
© 2021 Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi & Wiley-VCH GmbH www.vjc.wiley-vch.de 244 
landfill was full and had to stop working. Despite 
being closed for nearly 20 years, total concentrations 
of PFCs, PFOA and PFOS in leachate at Tay Mo 
landfill were similar to those at the operating Nam 
Son landfill. In the study reported by N. H. Lam in 
2017, in wastewater drainage canal of two domestic 
landfills in HCMC, PFCs were found at 
concentrations (3.19-3.33 ng/L) much lower than 
that observed at Nam Son and Tay Mo. 
Additionally, the total concentrations of PFCs and 
PFOA from the drainage canals of the domestic 
wastewater treatment plant in HCMC are about two- 
to three times lower than that at the Nam Son and 
Tay Mo landfills. Through occurrence data of PFCs 
in leachate at municipal landfills in developed 
countries around the world, concentrations of PFCs 
at Tay Mo was lower than those reported in Spain 
(1082 ng/L),
[6]
 Germany (1174 ng/L),
[14]
 Australia 
(2219; 3466 ng/L),
[15]
 USA,
[16]
 and much lower than 
those recognized in China;
[17,18]
 but higher than 
reported in Norway (62-251 ng/L).
[19]
 Generally, 
PFOS and PFOA have been the most considerable 
PFCs, and concentrations of PFOA were always 
higher than the PFOS concentrations in municipal 
wastewater worldwide. 
In fact, data on PFCs in sediments in the landfill 
sites are rarely investigated. PFCs in sediment at Tay 
Mo landfill were higher than those found in the 
landfill runoff in HCMC,
[4]
 than those reported in 
the landfills in Norway. In comparison with data in 
sediment of discharge canals of a wastewater 
treatment plant in HCMC (0.18-23.4 ng/g d.w)
[4]
 and 
a Chinese wastewater treatment plant (1-23 ng/g 
d.w),
[20]
 the sediment samples in Tay Mo landfill had 
the lower total concentration of PFCs. 
4. CONCLUSIONS 
Tay Mo landfill, Hanoi has been closed for nearly 20 
years, but the previous technical conditions for 
landfills have not been adequately implemented, 
even now there are still areas where open-air piled 
waste has not been completely decomposed. The 
total concentrations of PFCs observed in leachate is 
several hundred ng/L and many times higher than 
those in the surrounding surface water in Nhue River 
where mainly received PFCs from untreated 
municipal wastewater sources (at sub - several ng/L 
levels). The results of this study showed that 
leachate collected from Tay Mo landfill affected the 
level of PFCs in surface water of closed water 
bodies like nearby ponds and lakes. As for large 
surrounding flows such as Nhue River, this effect 
can be neglected because the leachate has a 
negligible volume compared to the river flow. 
However, the Tay Mo landfill remains a potential 
source of POPs contamination like PFCs to nearby 
water bodies especially during the rainy season. 
Acknowledgement. This study was financially 
supported by the National Foundation for Science 
and Technology Development according to the 
project grant No. 104.04-2017.346. The authors 
would like to thank the project ''Monitoring and 
management of POPs compounds in Asia'' 
coordinated by United Nations University of Japan 
(UNU-IAS) for providing guidance on basic 
analytical techniques. 
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Corresponding author: Duong Hong Anh 
Research Centre for Environmental Technology and Sustainable Development 
(CETASD), VNU University of Science, Vietnam National University 
334 Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi 10000, Viet Nam 
 Tel: +84- 91-238-0373, E-mail: duonghonganh@hus.edu.vn. 
Table 2: Concentrations of PFCs in leachate and sediment from other landfills in the world 
Country Type of leachate (number of landfills) PFOA (ng/L) PFOS (ng/L) PFCs (ng/L) References 
Vietnam 
 Tay Mo, Hanoi Leachate (n = 4) 51.0 (29.9-110) 19.1 (6.66-45.9) 161 (103-328) In this study 
Tay Mo, Hanoi Surface water from ponds next to landfill (n = 2) 6.11 (5.85-6.37) 1.49 (1.43-1.54) 20.7 (19.1-22.4) In this study 
Nam Son, Hanoi Leachate (n = 1) 100 11 360 Joon-Woo Kim (2012) [8] 
Nam Son, Hanoi Surface water around the landfill (n = 9) 1.2 (< 1.4-11) 0.28 (0.8-2.5) 8.4 (nd-15) Joon-Woo Kim (2012) [8] 
Hochiminh City Drainage canals - landfill (n = 2) 1.39 (1.38-1.39) 0.42 (0.26-0.59) 3.26 (3.19-3.33) N.H.Lam (2017) [4] 
Hochiminh City Drainage canals - WWTP (n = 6) 17.1 (0.84-53.5) 9.26 (<0.03-40.2) 36.2 (1.30-107) N.H.Lam (2017) [4] 
Spain Leachate (n = 4) 461 (387-584) 11 (nd - 43) 1082 (639-1379) I. Fuertes (2017) [6] 
Germany Leachate (treated and untreated) (n = 20) 145 (< 0.4-926) 30.9 (0.01-235) 1174 J. Busch (2010) [14] 
Norway Leachate (untreated) (n = 6) 23.2-115.6 4.2-24.2 62-251 Field et al. (2005) [19] 
China Leachate (untreated) (n = 5) 281-214000 1150-6020 7280-292000 H. Yan (2015) [17] 
Leachate (treated) (n = 5) 
98.4-286000 H. Yan (2015) [17] 
China, Beijing Leachate (untreated) (n = 3) 2627 (1211-4658) 32 (<15-76) 4960 (2515-8589) C. Zhang (2014) [18] 
Australia Leachate (closed landfills) (n = 7) 390±170 180±250 2219 C. Gallen (2017) [15] 
 Leachate (n = 12) 510±410 300±330 3466 C. Gallen (2017) [15] 
United States Leachate (n = 5) 820 (177-2500) 52 (26-92) B.O. Clarke (2015) [16] 
 Country Sediment (number of landfills) PFOA (ng/g d.w) PFOS (ng/g d.w) PFCs (ng/g d.w) References 
Vietnam 
Tay Mo, Hanoi Drainage canals - landfill (n = 4) 0.29 (0.34-0.51) 0.97 (0.26-2.54) 5.00 (3.52-6.70) In this study 
Hochiminh City Drainage canals - landfill (n = 2) < 0.2 < 0.08 1.31-1.75 N.H. Lam (2017) [4] 
Hochiminh City Drainage canals - WWTP (n = 4) < 0.2 < 0.08 0.18-23.4 N.H. Lam (2017) [4] 
China Sludge from WWTP (n = 28) 1-23 Wei. Zhang (2013) [20] 
Norway Landfill ( n = 6) <LOD - 7.862 0.216-10.02 2.78-23.54 Field et al. (2005) [19] 
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