RESUMO
This work focuses on assessing the impact of two types of waste pretreatment: addition of bottom ashes and aerobic pretreatment on both the onset and kinetics of methanogenesis and the evolution of different parameters in the leachate. It also studies the correlation between methane production and the different parameters measured in the leachate produced. A total of six 68-L pilots were thus used with fresh municipal solid waste (MSW) shredded to a 40-mm size. After 14 months of landfilling, the control has produced less than 10 NLkg(-1)DM, which corresponds to around 7% of its biochemical methane potential (BMP). Nevertheless, on one hand for aerobically pretreated waste, the lag phase before the onset of methanogenesis is significantly reduced to 0.9 month compared to more than 1 year for the control. In addition to that, on average 110 NLkg(-1)DM (90% of the BMP) is produced within around 6.5 months. On the other hand, the waste with added bottom ash shows a slight improvement of the lag phase over the control for one of the duplicate: 6.1 months of lag phase. At this stage, on average of 26 NLkg(-1)DM waste are detected (22% of the BMP) no final conclusion concerning the impact of bottom ashes could be made. The data obtained for the leachate parameters agrees with the observations on methane production. Statistical correlation study shows that the two components of the corrected PCA interpret 76% of the variability of the data: SUVA (specific UV absorbance at 254 nm) and HPI(*) (% of hydrophilic compounds) are identified as interesting parameters for following up the biodegradation in landfill conditions.
