On Line Monitoring of Odour Nuisance at a Sanitary Landfill for Non-Hazardous Waste

摘要

A field study was carried out to assess the possibility of monitoring online malodours from a sanitary landfill fornon-hazardous waste. To that aim, the performance of a multisensory electronic nose and a H_2S continuousanalyser used in situ was evaluated to identify odorous compounds in ambient air emitted from the landfill asperceived at the nearest municipal receptor (the city of Statte, Southern Italy) and compared with the resultsobtained in laboratory by dynamic olfactometry. Alert situations were conventionally established when twoconsecutive H_2S concentration measurements at 5 min intervals exceeded 20 ppb or when odour emissionsmeasured by the e-nose exceeded 500 OU/m~3 for more than 5 min. The study comprised two main activities:1) training the e-nose to recognize the odorous compounds emitted from the landfill; 2) evaluating theefficiency of the H_2S continuous analyser to provide useful information related to biogas emission. Activity 1demonstrated the e-nose effectiveness for on-line monitoring, quantifying and identifying the odours producedby the landfill. Data processing showed that CDA was the most suitable algorithm to achieve best odours’pattern recognition. Activity 2 showed that H_2S measurements, depending on site-specific factors identified byKolmogorov-Smirnov test, were poorly correlated with odour concentration in ambient air measured bydynamic olfactometry, as dynamic olfactometry takes into account the effect of other emitted compounds orthe masking/enhancing effect of other compounds over H_2S. Accordingly, further site-specific investigation isdeemed necessary in order to achieve full on-line control of air quality and to adopt proper managementmeasures at sanitary landfills and other odour emitting sources.