chapter 4: temperature inside the landfill

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Temperature and moisture content data were collected from an anaerobic portion of a
bioreactor landfill in Florida over a period of about three years. Fifty-six thermocouples were
installed in the bottom of the injection wells. Fifty MTG sensors reported temperature and
moisture content of the waste twice per day.
The hypothesis tested was that temperature sensors can be used to track moisture arrival.
After confirming the hypothesis at the injection wells, the hypothesis was applied to sensors at
monitoring locations. It was observed that the hypothesis is true only 37% of the time. The main
cause of the failure of the temperature data in sensing moisture arrival was found to be the
heating of the moisture as suggested by the frequent occurrences of Scenario 2 and 3, combined
(42%). The suitable explanation for the heating of the liquid may be the augmented biological
activity as a result of moisture from the previous injections. Consequently, the first injections
were analyzed and 85% of the temp events supported the hypothesis. Upon analyzing detection
by moisture sensors, the results showed that the moisture sensors were able to detect moisture
arrival for 39% of the total instances which is similar to temperature sensors. As for first
injections, moisture sensors did a marginally better job than the temperature sensors and were
able to detect for 91% of the time.
The volume of the waste wetted from the first injection of the additional liquid was also
estimated in the study. The percentages of the waste volume moistened was found to vary from