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2000 Progress Report: Characterizing Moisture Content Within Landfills

EPA Grant Number: R827933C021
Subproject: this is subproject number 021 , established and managed by the Center Director under grant R825427
(EPA does not fund or establish subprojects; EPA awards and manages the overall grant for this center).
Center: Urban Waste Management and Research Center (University New Orleans)
Center Director: McManis, Kenneth
Title: Characterizing Moisture Content Within Landfills
Investigators: Tittlebaum, Marty , Chiu, Pei , Imhoff, Paul T.
Institution: University of New Orleans , University of Delaware
EPA Project Officer: Krishnan, Bala S.
Project Period: July 1, 2000 through June 30, 2003
Project Period Covered by this Report: July 1, 2000 through June 30, 2001
RFA: Urban Waste Management & Research Center (1998)
Research Category: Targeted Research

Description:

Objective:

The objectives of this research are to test and evaluate a promising technology, recently developed by soil scientists, to characterize the moisture content within landfills. The research into the partitioning gas tracer technology will be conducted over a 3-year period. In the first 2 years, laboratory experiments will be used to: (1) test the utility of this technology for measuring moisture content in municipal solid waste; (2) select optimal gas tracers; and (3) develop design guidelines for field implementation. In the third year of the project, field-sampling equipment will be designed and constructed, and an intermediate-scale test of the technology will be performed in a large mesoscale apparatus. From this suite of experiments, we will assess the advantages and any disadvantages with this technology, develop design guidelines for field implementation, and perform an economic analysis of the cost of performing these measurements.

Progress Summary:

The primary objective of the first year of research was to determine if the moisture content in solid waste can be determined by the partitioning gas tracer technology. To accomplish this objective, an experimental system was designed and constructed, tracer gases were selected, and experiments were performed to test the experimental approach and evaluate the utility of the partitioning gas tracer technology in solid waste.

From July 1, 2000-December 31, 2000, the experimental system was designed and constructed, an initial selection of gas tracers was made, and a few initial experiments were performed. Helium and difluoromethane were selected as the conservative and partitioning tracers for the first set of experiments; both tracers were successfully used to measure moisture content in soils systems in earlier work. A schematic of the experimental system that includes a gas chromatograph (GC) is shown in Figure 1.

During the period from January 1, 2001-April 1, 2001, a quantitative test was completed for the partitioning gas tracer technology using published values of the Henry's Law constant for difluoromethane. A 5 cm-diameter, 30 cm-long glass column was packed with solid waste and wetted. Two partitioning gas tracer tests (PGTT) were performed to measure the initial water content in the system. A water volume of 60 mL was then carefully added to the column, and two additional PGTT were conducted. The response of the second set of PGTT was compared with the first set of these tests to determine the volume of water that was added. Because the amount of water added was known independently, there was sufficient data to evaluate the accuracy of this test.

Figure 1.

Using the known amount of water added to the column (60 mL) and the known column volume (1230 mL), the change in water content between the first and second set of PGTT was .049. The increase in the water content determined by the two sets of PGTT is shown in Table 1; the gas tracer tests determined an average increase in water content of 0.066, which is 35 percent larger than the actual increase.

Table 1.

Water contents Trial 1 Trial 2 Average
Before water addition 0.238 0.247 .242
  Trial 3 Trial 4 Average
After water addition 0.303 0.314 0.308
Average change in thetaw= .066


Although the PGTT overestimated the change in water content in the landfill material by 35 percent, errors of this magnitude are typical in measurements of moisture content in soils. However, we believe that this error may be caused in part by an error in the literature-reported Henry's Law constant for difluoromethane.

During the period from May 1, 2001–June 30, 2001, laboratory tests were performed to determine the Henry's Law constant for the partitioning tracer (difluoromethane), as there was some uncertainty about the accuracy of the published value. Our experiments did not yield conclusive results for the Henry's Law constant; measured values varied depending on experimental conditions. Because some of these problems are likely associated with our gas chromatography system and because a gas chromatographic system with automatic sample collection will be needed for any larger scale test of this technology, we purchased and are now testing a new system that should alleviate most of our experimental problems.

In June 2001, a model 8610C portable gas chromatograph (GC) was purchased from SRI Instruments, Inc. (Torrance, CA). This GC is equipped with an automatic gas sampling valve, a separation column, and three detectors. The three detectors are a thermal conductivity detector, a flame-ionizing detector, and an electron capture detector. Previous experiments with the solid waste column and the Shimadzu GC 14-A show that after a short time, other gases formed from the decomposition of the trash affected the detector signals. The new GC will be able to separate these decomposition gases from the tracer gases so signal interference can be prevented. We also believe that small impurities in the gas stream may have affected our efforts, reported above, to determine the Henry's Law constant.

Currently, the SRI GC is being set up and programmed to measure the Henry's Law constant for difluoromethane.

Future Activities:

During the second year of the project, we will work on the following tasks:

·Measure Henry's Law constant for difluoromethane, the partitioning tracer we have selected in our work thus far.
·Conduct sufficient additional laboratory experiments to establish the accuracy of the partitioning tracer technology for a wide range of water contents and packing densities of the solid waste.
·Evaluate one or more candidate partitioning tracer gases for moisture content measurements in solid waste.
·Submit a paper to a refereed journal describing the results from our small-scale laboratory experiments.
·Begin the design of experiments to be conducted in a mesoscale apparatus in year 3 of this project.

Journal Articles:

No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 1 publications for this subproject

Supplemental Keywords:

water content, landfills. , Sustainable Industry/Business, Scientific Discipline, Waste, RFA, Technology for Sustainable Environment, Sustainable Environment, Chemistry, Environmental Engineering, Municipal, Chemistry and Materials Science, Ecology and Ecosystems, Engineering, gas tracer technology, landfill design, landfill operation, municipal solid waste landfills, landfills, geosynthetic clay liners, landfill moisture control, modeling, municipal waste
Relevant Websites:

http://uwmrc.cjb.net exit EPA
http://www.ce.udel.edu/~imhoff/ exit EPA

Progress and Final Reports:
Original Abstract
2002 Progress Report


Main Center Abstract and Reports:
R825427    Urban Waste Management and Research Center (University New Orleans)

Subprojects under this Center: (EPA does not fund or establish subprojects; EPA awards and manages the overall grant for this center).
R825427C001 Comprehensive Evaluation of The Dual Trickling Filter Solids Contact Process
R825427C002 Issues Involving the Vertical Expansion of Landfills
R825427C003 Deep Foundations on Brownfields Sites
R825427C004 Ambient Particulate Concentration Model for Traffic Intersections
R825427C005 Effectiveness of Rehabilitation Approaches for I/I Reduction
R825427C006 Urban Solid Waste Management Videos
R825427C007 UWMRC Community Outreach Multimedia Exhibit
R825427C008 Including New Technology into the Investigation of Inappropriate Pollutant Entries into Storm Drainage Systems - A User's Guide
R825427C009 Investigation of Hydraulic Characteristics and Alternative Model Development of Subsurface Flow Constructed Wetlands
R825427C010 Beneficial Use Of Urban Runoff For Wetland Enhancement
R825427C011 Urban Storm and Waste Water Outfall Modeling
R827933C001 Development of a Model Sediment Control Ordinance for Louisisana
R827933C002 Inappropriate Discharge to Stormwater Drainage (Demonstration Project)
R827933C003 Alternate Liner Evaluation Model
R827933C004 LA DNR - DEQ - Regional Waste Management
R827933C005 Landfill Design Specifications
R827933C006 Geosynthetic Clay Liners as Alternative Barrier Systems
R827933C007 Used Tire Monofill
R827933C008 A Comparison of Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Bed (USAB) and the Anaerobic Biofilm Fluidized Bed Reactor (ABFBR) for the Treatment of Municipal Wastewater
R827933C009 Integrated Environmental Management Plan for Shipbuilding Facilities
R827933C010 Nicaragua
R827933C011 Louisiana Environmental Education and Resource Program
R827933C012 Costa Rica - Costa Rican Initiative
R827933C013 Evaluation of Cr(VI) Exposure Assessment in the Shipbuilding Industry
R827933C014 LaTAP, Louisiana Technical Assistance Program: Pollution Prevention for Small Businesses
R827933C015 Louisiana Environmental Leadership Pollution Prevention Program
R827933C016 Inexpensive Non-Toxic Pigment Substitute for Chromium in Primer for Aluminum Sibstrate
R827933C017 China - Innovative Waste Composting Plan for the City of Benxi, People's Rupublic of China
R827933C018 Institutional Control in Brownfields Redevelopment: A Methodology for Community Participation and Sustainability
R827933C019 Physico-Chemical Assessment for Treatment of Storm Water From Impervious Urban Watersheds Typical of the Gulf Coast
R827933C020 Influence of Cyclic Interfacial Redox Conditions on the Structure and Integrity of Clay Liners for Landfills Subject to Variable High Groundwater Conditions in the Gulf Coast Region
R827933C021 Characterizing Moisture Content Within Landfills
R827933C022 Bioreactor Landfill Moisture Management
R827933C023 Urban Water Issues: A Video Series
R827933C024 Water Quality Modeling in Urban Storm Water Systems
R827933C025 The Development of a Web Based Instruction (WBI) Program for the UWMRC User's Guide (Investigation of Inappropriate Pollutant Entries Into Storm Drainage Systems)
R827933C027 Legal Issues of SSO's: Private Property Sources and Non-NPDES Entities
R827933C028 Brownfields Issues: A Video Series
R827933C029 Facultative Landfill Bioreactors (FLB): A Pilot-Scale Study of Waste Stabilization, Landfill Gas Emissions, Leachate Treatment, and Landfill Geotechnical Properties
R827933C030 Advances in Municipal Wastewater Treatment
R827933C031 Design Criteria for Sanitary Sewer System Rehabilitation
R827933C032 Deep Foundations in Brownfield Areas: Continuing Investigation
R827933C033 Gradation-Based Transport, Kinetics, Coagulation, and Flocculation of Urban Watershed Rainfall-Runoff Particulate Matter
R827933C034 Leaching and Stabilization of Solid-Phase Residuals Separated by Storm Water BMPs Capturing Urban Runoff Impacted by Transportation Activities and Infrastructure
R827933C035 Fate of Pathogens in Storm Water Runoff
R87933C020 Influence of Cyclic Interfacial Redox Conditions on the Structure and Integrity of Clay Liners for Landfills Subject to Variable High Groundwater Conditions in the Gulf Coast Region

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The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.

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