Abstract
Aeration by airflow technology is a reliable method to accelerate waste biodegradation and stabilization and hence shorten the aftercare period of a landfill. To simulate hydro-biochemical behaviors in this type of landfills, this study develops a model coupling multi-phase flow, multi-component transport and aerobic-anaerobic biodegradation using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The uniqueness of the model is that it can well describe the evolution of aerobic zone, anaerobic zone, and temperature during aeration and evaluate aeration efficiency considering aerobic and anaerobic biodegradation processes. After being verified using existing in situ and laboratory test results, the model is then employed to reveal the bio-stable zone development, aerobic biochemical reactions around vertical well (VW), and anaerobic reactions away from VW. With an increase in the initial organic matter content (0.1 to 0.4), the bio-stable zone expands at a decreasing speed but with all the horizontal ranges larger than 17 m after an intermittent aeration for 1000 days. When waste intrinsic permeability is equal or greater than 10−11 m2, aeration using a low pressure between 4 and 8 kPa is appropriate. The aeration efficiency would be underestimated if anaerobic biodegradation is neglected because products of anaerobic biodegradation would be oxidized more easily. A horizontal spacing of 17 m is suggested for aeration VWs with a vertical spacing of 10 m for screens. Since a lower aeration frequency can give greater aeration efficiency, a 20-day aeration/20-day leachate recirculation scenario is recommended considering the maximum temperature over a reasonable range. For wet landfills with low temperature, the proportion of aeration can be increased to 0.67 (20-day aeration/10-day leachate recirculation) or an even higher value.
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Notations
\( \overset{=}{\tau } \)shear stress tensor
Aanisotropy of MSW
Dimass diffusion coefficient for component i
DT,ithermal diffusion coefficient
fTinhibition factor of temperature
fθinhibition factor of moisture content
gacceleration of gravity
H0landfill height
Hsscreen length of VW
HwVW depth
hqspecific enthalpy of phase q
\( \overrightarrow{J_i} \)diffusion flux of component i
kiintrinsic permeability
k•Monod saturation constant
kO2,isaturation constant of O2
kCH4saturation constant for CH4
krrelative permeability
K•reaction rate constant
mvgvan Genuchten constant
ntotal porosity of MSW
nvgvan Genuchten constant
pqliquid/gas pressure
pccapillary pressure
\( {P}_{{\mathrm{O}}_2} \)partial pressure of O2
PH2partial pressure of H2
PCH4partial pressure of CH4
qqheat flux
Qpqintensity of heat exchange between phases
\( {R}_{\bullet}^i \)reaction rate
Risource/sink term of component i in biochemical reactions
\( {R}_{\bullet}^{\mathrm{D}} \) decay rate of biomass
Siconcentration of substrate
Seeffective degree of saturation
Sqsource/sink term of phase q
ttime
Ttemperature
Vqvolume occupied by phase q
\( \overrightarrow{v_q} \)velocity of phase q
X•concentration of biomass
\( {X}_{\bullet}^{ini} \)initial concentration of biomass
Yimass fraction of component i in phase q
Y•yield coefficient
αlrresidual volume fraction of leachate phase
αlsmaximum volume fraction of leachate phase
αqphasic volume fraction of phase q
αvgVGM parameter related to the gas entry pressure
μqdynamic viscosity of phase q
μ•specific growth rate of biomass
\( {\mu}_{\bullet}^{\mathrm{max}} \)maximum specific growth rate
η•environmental inhibition factor
ρqdensity of phase q
Funding
The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 41725012, 41572265, and 41661130153; the Shuguang Scheme under Grant No. 16SG19; and the Newton Advanced Fellowship of the Royal Society under Grant No. NA150466.
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Feng, SJ., Li, AZ., Zheng, QT. et al. Numerical model of aerobic bioreactor landfill considering aerobic-anaerobic condition and bio-stable zone development. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 15229–15247 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-04875-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-04875-y