Gas Transport Parameters for Compacted Reddish-Brown Soil in Sri Lankan Landfill Final Cover
Publication: Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 15, Issue 4
Abstract
Gas exchange through the compacted final cover soil at landfill sites plays a vital role for emission, fate, and transport of toxic landfill gases. This study involved measuring the soil-gas diffusivity (, the ratio of gas diffusion coefficients in soil and free air) and air permeability () for differently compacted soil samples (reddish-brown soil) from the final cover at the Maharagama landfill in Sri Lanka. The samples were prepared by either standard Proctor compaction or hand compaction to dry bulk densities of 1.60–. Existing and modified models for predicting and were tested against the measured data. The simple, single-parameter Buckingham model predicted measured values across compaction levels equally well or better than a dry bulk density (DBD) dependent model and a soil-water retention (SWR) dependent model. The measured values for differently compacted samples were highly affected by the compaction level and the sample moisture preparation method. Also, for air permeability, a single-parameter Buckingham-type model was most accurate in predicting in the differently compacted soil samples. Equivalent air-filled pore diameters (the effective diameter of the drained pores active in leading air through the sample) for gas flow, , were calculated from the measured and values. The increased with compaction level, suggesting that a very high compaction level creates well-connected macropores in the reduced total pore space of the cover soil. This is an important consideration when designing cover soils for optimally low water and high oxygen exchange while minimizing climate and toxic gas emissions from the waste layer to the atmosphere.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Research for Promoting Technological Seeds, the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), and by a grant from the Takahashi Industrial and Economic Research Foundation. Part of this work was also supported by the projects Gas Diffusivity in Intact Unsaturated Soil (GADIUS) and Soil Infrastructure, Interfaces, and Translocation Processes in Inner Space (Soil-It-Is) from the Danish Research Council for Technology and Production Sciences and by a research grant from JST and the Japan International Cooperation Agency Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS).
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Published In
Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 15 • Issue 4 • October 2011
Pages: 285 - 295
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 6, 2010
Accepted: Sep 21, 2010
Published online: Oct 9, 2010
Published in print: Oct 1, 2011
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