Application of the stoichiometric methane potential obtained by waste elemental analysis to landfill gas modeling

This study was conducted to evaluate the possibility of applying the stoichiometric methane potential using elemental analysis, to landfill gas modeling at the Sudokwon 2nd Landfill Site in South Korea, where most of the household and demolition waste from more than twenty million citizens is disposed. The used model structure is based on the first order decay equation. The theoretical stoichiometric methane potential was corrected by multiplying the ratio of decomposable carbon which was obtained by biochemical decomposable carbon test. Then the optimum reaction constant k was found by sensitivity analysis and the Monte Carlo method. Under these input conditions, the modeling results showed that the discrepancies between the measured and modeled values of total quantity of methane and the mean deviation were 1.6 and 3.2%, respectively. Thus, it can be established that the application of stoichiometric method using elemental analysis data could be a useful methods to apply to landfill gas modeling.