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In-situ neutralize methane emission from landfills in loess regions using leachate

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Abstract

In loess regions, landfilling is the predominant solid waste disposal and loess is usually used as landfill cover soil. However, the methane (CH4) bio-oxidation activity of virgin loess is usually below 0.01 µmol/(h g-soil). In this study, we proposed a method to improve CH4 removal capacity of loess by amelioration with mature landfill leachate, which is in-situ, easily available, and appropriate. The organic matter content of the ameliorated loess increased by 180%, reaching 19.69–24.88 g/kg-soil, with more than 90% being non-leachable. The abundance of type I methane-oxidizing bacteria and methane monooxygenase gene pmoA increased by 5.0 and 79 times, respectively. Consequently, the maximum CH4 removal rate of ameliorated loess reached 0.74–1.41 µmol/(h g-soil) at 25°C, which was 4-fold higher than that of water-irrigated loess. Besides, the CH4 removal rate peaked at 10 vt% CH4 concentration and remained at around 1.4 µmol/(h g-soil) at 15°C–35°C. The column test confirmed that the highest CH4 removal efficiency was at 30–10 cm below the surface, reaching 26.1%±0.4%, and the 50-cm-thick loess layer irrigated with leachate achieved more than 85% CH4 removal efficiency. These results could help to realize carbon neutrality in landfill sites of global loess regions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Waste Treatment and Reclamation, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    PinJing He, JunLan Chen, LiMing Shao, Hua Zhang & Fan Lu

  2. Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security, Shanghai, 200092, China

    PinJing He, LiMing Shao, Hua Zhang & Fan Lu

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  1. PinJing He
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  2. JunLan Chen
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  3. LiMing Shao
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  4. Hua Zhang
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  5. Fan Lu
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Correspondence to Fan Lu.

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This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFC1903700), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41877537).

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He, P., Chen, J., Shao, L. et al. In-situ neutralize methane emission from landfills in loess regions using leachate. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 64, 1500–1512 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-021-1819-2

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