Mitigation of Methane, NMVOCs and Odor Emissions in Active and Passive Biofiltration Systems at Municipal Solid Waste Landfills

Abstract

Biofiltration systems are emerging technological solutions for the removal of methane and odors from landfill gas when flaring is no longer feasible. This work analyzed and compared two full-scale biofiltration systems: biofilter and biowindows. The emission mitigation of methane, non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) and odors during a two-year management and monitoring period was studied. In addition to diluted methane, more than 50 NMVOCs have been detected in the inlet raw landfill gas and the sulfur compounds resulted in the highest odor activity value. Both systems, biofilter and biowindows, were effective for the oxidation of methane (58.1% and 88.05%, respectively), for the mitigation of NMVOCs (higher than 80%) and odor reduction (99.84% and 93.82% respectively). As for the biofilter monitoring, it was possible to define the oxidation efficiency trend and in fact to guarantee that for an oxidation efficiency of 80%, the methane load must be less than 6.5 g CH4/m2h with an oxidation rate of 5.2 g CH4/m2h.

Field Study on the Efficiency of a Methane Degradation Layer Composed of Fine Fraction Soil from Landfill Mining

“…Yamini and Reddy [52], as well as Scheutz et al [18], have stated that it is difficult to quantify landfill fugitive methane emissions due to the high temporal variability and spatial heterogeneity of emissions, leading to this being one of largest sources for errors and uncertainties in biocover research. To reduce the uncertainties in research, various materials and mixtures with relatively uniform compositions have been used for biocovers-e.g., compost made of sewage sludge [53], biowaste [41,42,45,[54][55][56], or green waste [57,58], as well as the fine fraction (FF) from the Mechanical-Biological Treatment (MBT) of municipal waste [47,59,60] [60]. Waste-based biocover materials are made of aged and stabilized refuse, and their properties are similar to those of humus soil [61].…”

Biofiltration of methane in presence of ethylbenzene or xylene

“…Several LFG elimination techniques exist such as thermal and catalytic oxidation, but the most commonly used mitigation technique is flaring (Ménard et al, 2012). In case of concentrations below 3% v/v (the case of small-scale landfills or landfills older than 30 years), biotechnologies present several advantages over abovementioned conventional techniques for LFG treatment in term of feasibility, environmental aspect and economical sustainability (Malakar et al, 2017;Pecorini et al, 2020).…”

“…Landfills are important sources of CH 4 emission due to anaerobic degradation of organic matters producing a biogas called landfill gas (LFG) with CH 4 concentrations up to 60% v/v (Padrón et al, 2020;Pecorini et al, 2020). It is estimated that 68 million metric tons of CH 4 were produced globally from waste management systems including landfills in 2019 (IEA, 2020).…”

Characterization of the Bacterial Community Associated with Methane and Odor in a Pilot-Scale Landfill Biocover under Moderately Thermophilic Conditions

“…Methane and odor compounds emitted by anaerobic digestion can be mitigated using biological, chemical, or physical treatment [ 3 , 10 - 12 ]. Biological treatment is more environmentally friendly and safer than chemical and physical approaches because it does not require the use of chemicals and can be conducted at normal temperatures and pressures [ 3 , 10 , 11 ].…”

“…Biological treatment is more environmentally friendly and safer than chemical and physical approaches because it does not require the use of chemicals and can be conducted at normal temperatures and pressures [ 3 , 10 , 11 ]. Biological treatment also offers high treatment efficiency, simple systems, and low treatment costs [ 3 , 12 ]. Therefore, biological systems such as biocovers and biowindows have attracted attention as promising technologies for the control of the methane and odor compounds emitted from landfills [ 10 , 11 ].…”