Quantifying factors limiting aerobic degradation during aerobic bioreactor landfilling

A bioreactor landfill cell at Yolo County, California was operated aerobically for six months to quantify the extent of aerobic degradation and mechanisms limiting aerobic activity during air injection and liquid addition. The portion of the solid waste degraded anaerobically was estimated and tracked through time. From an analysis of in situ aerobic respiration and gas tracer data, it was found that a large fraction of the gas-filled pore space was in immobile zones where it was difficult to maintain aerobic conditions, even at relatively moderate landfill cell-average moisture contents of 33-36%. Even with the intentional injection of air, anaerobic activity was never less than 13%, and sometimes exceeded 65%. Analyses of gas tracer and respiration data were used to quantify rates of respiration and rates of mass transfer to immobile gas zones. The similarity of these rates indicated that waste degradation was influenced significantly by rates of oxygen transfer to immobile gas zones, which comprised 32-92% of the gas-filled pore space. Gas tracer tests might be useful for estimating the size of the mobile/immobile gas zones, rates of mass transfer between these regions, and the difficulty of degrading waste aerobically in particular waste bodies.