Enhancing Energy Recovery from Waste: A Study on Enzyme Addition to Enhance Methane Gas Production

摘要

Landfill bioreactors employ leachate recirculation strategies to promote natural microbial breakdown of waste, resulting in accelerated stabilization rates and improved biogas production compared to traditional "dry tomb" landfills. This allows for power generation from the collected methane and expedited land reuse. However, gas production rates in landfill bioreactors decrease with time. Leachate modification before recirculation is a promising method for enhancing gas production in landfill bioreactors during the declining gas phase. Two principal strategies of leachate enrichment have been identified: (i) the addition of nutrients to maintain ideal microbial growth conditions and (ii) enzymatic augmentation to degrade biopolymers, such as lignin-rich waste, to increase the amount of available organic carbon. Although there is evidence that nutrient addition in leachate can increase gas production in landfills, enzymatic augmentation of leachate is a relatively new concept and very little is known of its applicability. Consequently, a study was undertaken to determine the viability of this new approach.