Re: Alternatives to Burning Landfill Gases?

[Alan Muller <amuller@dca.net>]

At 15:18 11/30/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>Does anyone know about any alternatives to the flaring or incineration of
>landfill gases?  Also, is anyone aware of emissions testing data for
>dioxins and furans coming from flaring or incineration of landfill gases?
>
>Mike Ewall
>Pennsylvania Environmental Network
>http://www.penweb.org
> 
Hi Mike.  

Not sure of the intended scope of your question.  On one level, the answer would seem to be not to load and operate landfills such that anerobic processes are going on on the presence of problematic contaminants....yielding reduced compounds such as methane., with contaminants, which are then burnt under poorly controlled conditions.

Presuming the production of contaminated landfill gasses to be inevitable, I am sure that low-temperature catalytic oxidation or other processes could be used to minimize the formation of dioxins, etc.  There exists a good deal of sophistication in the modelling and design of combustion processes, although this expertise is more often applied to production ("chemical engineering") problems than incineration or "power" problems.  I might be able to come up with a few names you could check with.

Regards,

Alan Muller
Green Delaware