Effects of Temperature, Moisture Content, and Fertilizer Addition on Biological Methane Oxidation in Landfill Cover Soils
Publication: Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management
Volume 13, Issue 3
Abstract
Patterns of methane oxidation were investigated under various combinations of environmental factors including temperature, moisture content, and fertilizer addition (as an additional nutrient source) in two types of existing landfill cover soils. In all the experimental runs, and oxygen concentrations decreased with time, while carbon dioxide concentration increased suggesting that biological oxidation was taking place. The highest oxidation rates ( ) were achieved at . The lowest oxidation rates ( ) were obtained for experiments conducted at without adding the fertilizer. For both types of soil, without adding fertilizer, the soil with 20% moisture content (MC) showed consistently higher oxidation rates compared to soil samples containing 25 or 30% MC, for different operating temperatures. Adding the fertilizer as the nutrient source to the two soils samples with 30% moisture content resulted in enhanced oxidation rates in a range of 44–145% at tested temperatures in the range between 5 and .
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Acknowledgments
The writers wish to express their appreciation to Lafleche Environmental Inc. for supplying funds for this study.
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© 2009 ASCE.
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Received: Jul 27, 2007
Accepted: Oct 22, 2008
Published online: Jun 15, 2009
Published in print: Jul 2009
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