Determination of landfill gas generation potential from lignocellulose biomass contents of municipal solid waste

Highlights: • Determined LFG potential from fresh waste, 3 and 6-months, 3 and 5-years old waste • Lignocellulose biomass is directly proportional to LFG potential of MSW. • Fresh waste has higher LFG potential as compared to old waste. • Experimental and predicted LFG potential of MSW was approximately equal. The presence of heat, methane (CH₄) and oxygen in landfill sub-surface causes initiation of spontaneous waste ignition posing severe environmental impacts. A municipal solid waste (MSW) reactor (trough) was designed to monitor landfill gases (LFGs) i.e., CH₄ and CO₂ and its potential from different waste categories (synthetic waste, fresh waste, 3-month, 6-month, 3-year and 5-year-old waste) collected from open MSW dumpsite. The quantity of cellulose (C), hemicellulose (H) and lignin (L) contents (C + H: L) present in organic waste fraction of each waste category was determined. Results showed that fresh waste which has higher ratio of C + H: L is responsible for maximum CH₄ and CO₂ generation i.e., 31,660 and 46,078 ml/g of volatile solid, respectively. The ratio of C + H: L observed in fresh waste, 3-month, 6-month, 3-year and 5-year-old waste was 2.62, 1.70, 1.32, 1.21 and 1, respectively. The study also showed that LFG generation is directly proportional to lignocellulose biomass contents present in MSW. Artificial neural network (ANN) modelling was used for the cross validation of CH₄ yield (valuable product) which showed ±4% error between experimental and predicted data.