Kinetic Modelling of a Landfill Anaerobic Digestion Temperature in Relation to Multiphase Flow Across Unsaturated Porous Waste Media

Year 2022, Volume: 17 Issue: 3, 85 - 103, 31.10.2022

Aniekan Ikpe , Victor Udoh

Abstract

Because an engineered landfill gas production unit is a closed system where organic waste is buried and compacted, there is need to understudy the kinetics under which gas evolves thereof. In this study, models were developed for multiphase flow across unsaturated porous waste media, semi-saturated and saturated media in a prototype landfill system. The anaerobic digestion temperature regime was kinetically Modelled for low, intermediate, and high landfill gas pressures as well as mass flow rates. The gas transport was modelled based on one dimensional transient basic differential equation while the biochemical kinetics was modelled based on Monod’s Equation. The models which were developed for anaerobic digestion temperature at mesophilic range of 305, 309, 313, 317 and 321 K were narrowed down to multiphase flow across unsaturated porous organic waste media. The average maximum landfill gas pressures at low, intermediate, and high-pressure zones within the landfill confinements were recorded as 10.87, 13.31, 15.3, 17.8 and 20.4 KPa for the aforementioned mesophilic temperature along between flow distance of 0.0 and 0.045 m. Similarly, maximum mass flow rate of 1E-07, 1E-06, 1E-05, 1E-03 and 1E-01 kg/s were obtained for landfill gas at the same mesophilic temperature range. This indicated that landfill temperature is proportional to the average kinetic energy of the landfill gas densities and particles. Therefore, constant increase in the landfill temperature scaled up the heat rate per unit area of the landfill, which in turn served as a catalyst for microbial breakdown of organic waste for the generation and acceleration of gas flow within the landfill confinements.

Keywords

Landfill, Leachate, Landfill gas, Organic waste, Porous media, Landfill temperature

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