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Methane oxidation in water-spreading and compost biofilters

Department of Oceanography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA, powelson{at}eng.fsu.edu

Jeffery Chanton

Department of Oceanography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

Tarek Abichou

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Florida A&M University and the Florida State University, College of Engineering, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

Jose Morales

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Florida A&M University and the Florida State University, College of Engineering, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

This study evaluated two biofilter designs to mitigate methane emissions from landfill vents. Water-spreading biofilters were designed to use the capillarity of coarse sand overlain by a finer sand to increase the active depth for methane oxidation. Compost biofilters consisted of 238-L barrels containing a 1: 1 mixture (by volume) of compost to expanded polystyrene pellets. Two replicates of each type of biofilter were tested at an outdoor facility. Gas inflow consisted of an approximately 1: 1 mixture (by volume) of CH₄ and CO₂. Methane output rates (J _out; g m^-2 day^-1) were measured using the static chamber technique and the Pedersen et al. (2001) diffusion model. Methane oxidation rate (J _ox; g m^-2 day^-1) and fraction of methane oxidized (f _ox) were determined by mass balance. For methane inflow rates (J _in) between 250 and 500 g m^-2 day^-1, the compost biofilter J _ox, 242 g m^-2 day^-1, was not significantly different (P = 0.0647) than the water-spreading biofilter J _ox, 203 g m^-2 day^-1; and the compost f _ox, 69%, was not significantly different (P = 0.7354) than water-spreading f _ox, 63%. The water-spreading biofilter was shown to generally perform as well as the compost biofilter, and it may be easier to implement at a landfill and require less maintenance.

Key Words: Biofilter • methane • oxidation • landfill • wmr 962-6

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