A Pilot-Scale Reactor for the Study of Gas Emissions from Composting

Abstract

Composting is generally accepted as an environmentally benign process for organic waste disposal. However, when not properly managed, composting can result in the emission of toxic and environmentally hazardous gases. Due to the potential negative consequences of composting, there is a need to gain a better understanding of the physical conditions that affect these volatile emissions in order to better control them. The objective of this project was to construct a pilot-scale compost reactor as a platform to study the potential impact of temperature, O2 concentration, airflow rate, and moisture content on the composting process. The pilot-scale reactor was able to control the temperature and O2 concentration inside the compost using an automated control algorithm. FTIR spectroscopy was used to continually measure the concentrations of CO2 and CH4 under time-varying temperature and O2 concentration conditions. This functionality will form the basis of future work to correlate physical process parameters with the volatile emissions from the compost process.