Production of Non Methane Organic Compounds During the Decomposition of Refuse and Individual Waste Components and Under Different Operating Conditions

Abstract

There has been an increased interest in the emissions of non-methane organic compounds (NMOCs) during refuse decomposition. In addition to the New Performance Standards in the Clean Air Act, many state regulatory agencies require estimates of NMOC emissions as part of the landfill permitting process. The objectives of this new project are to measure NMOC yields for specific waste components entering landfills and the effect of alternate oxidation-reduction potentials (O2, NO3, CH4) on NMOC production. The experimental design consists of 8 treatments conducted in triplicate 7-l reactors. Four of the 8 treatments consist of shredded residential municipal solid waste (MSW), in which, the residential MSW was decomposed under aerobic conditions for 30 days followed by methanogenic conditions, decomposed under nitrate-reducing conditions, spiked with selected HHW plus methanogenic leachate initially, and decomposed under methanogenic conditions methanogenic leachate. The other four treatments were food waste; a mixture of grass; leaves and branches; a mixture of the dominant paper types present in MSW; and a leachate control. The results are preliminary though day 73. The average NMOC yields for the aerobic, mixed paper, yard waste, MSW, MSW plus HHW, nitrate, food waste and leachate controls were as follows: 2.28*10-1; 7.44*10-3; 1.45*10-2; 6.97*10-2; 5.84*10-2; 3.08*10-2; 2.93*10-1 mg-C/dry g; and 6.85*10-4 mg-C/mL, respectively.