Technical Note: An Algorithm for the Detection of Steady-State Measurements of Gas Emissions From Compost

Abstract

High concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) have been observed in the enclosed composting facility at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre in Alberta, Canada. An elevated concentration of CO in the facility is a potential health threat to workers. Research was conducted to assess the temporal and spatial variability of CO emissions from the composting bays, using Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy. Repeated gas measurements of CO, CO2, and CH4 were taken above and inside the compost bed using a metal gas probe. The probe was connected to the FTIR gas analyzer, which continuously collected gas concentration data. The data collected using the FTIR resulted in a continuous time series of gas measurements, where the peaks in the data signal corresponded to gas measurements taken inside the compost, and valleys represented the gas measurements taken above the compost bed. This article describes the algorithm that was devised to determine the gas concentrations at each sampling location using the MATLAB® programming environment. The algorithm was able to successfully identify the sampling locations from the continuous gas measurement data, and determine the average steady-state gas concentration above and inside of the composting bays for CO, CO2, and CH4.