Abstract

Controlling greenhouse gases at landfill is a great point of concern. This research aims to control methane and carbon dioxide by applying novel intelligent MSW management system. The intelligent MSW management system (Intelligent QEJ Bricks) proposed in this research provides new ideas about: landfill operation, material for biogas collection, biogas transport modeling, biogas mass transfer optimization, design configuration, and automatic control system. The operation of new system includes series of cells built subsequently with porous bricks that confines waste cells. This approach implies integrated operation system that combines waste disposal, biogas evacuation, and biogas control. Bricks are made up of hydrophobic recyclable material that might be available on waste disposal site. In this research, a recyclable hydrophobic polymer (Styrofoam) was tested at laboratory to check its functionality for biogas collection. The test procedure on polymer medium entails the following findings: the permeability, the conductivity and diffusion coefficients, the convective flowrate, and the diffusive flux through polymer medium for carbon dioxide and methane. The influence of parameters such as water content, porosity, temperature variation, pressure gradient, and concentration gradient on gas movement (diffusion and convection) was also analyzed. Information obtained from the laboratory tests were formulated as knowledge bases. The fuzzy logic implicated knowledge bases and specific rules to have the output that represents the gas transport rates in hydrophobic polymer medium for a wide range of various environmental parameters. Genetic algorithm is used to optimize a transfer function that represents solutions for transfer rates for different ratios of biogas mixture. The mass and volume of biogas within the landfill time of service are determined for designing hydrophobic porous bricks for any ratio of CH 4 :CO 2 in landfill. After having the cells finished and closed the configuration of the new system satisfies confining the waste with hydrophobic porous walls that surrounds the waste and captures all available biogas generated at the landfill. The design includes a system of valves evacuating biogas from porous walls of the bricks. The process of evacuation might link the valves with a blower that is connected with a storage tank or an energy generator. The valves are controlled by fuzzy logic system that is fed by sensors-data acquisition system. The output of automatic intelligent fuzzy system is dependent on the input data from the sensor-data acquisition system.