Landfill Monitoring with FleetZOOM

Landfill flare and landfill gas monitoring provided by FleetZOOM products give landfill managers the tools to run facilities at peak form.

The natural decomposition of organic material in landfills produces a great deal of Methane gas. This gas should be burned (or "flared") to reduce odor, which also limits the impact on the environment and minimizes greenhouse gas emissions.

The primary benefit of monitoring the landfill gas collection and leachate monitoring with the FleetZOOM FZ400 is that it enables the gas operation manager to quickly respond to problems and minimize the impacts to the surrounding environment.

Landfills are typically large and encompass many acres per site. The gas collection systems in landfills are complex and spread out all across each facility. Furthermore, gas operation managers are typically responsible for many landfills at once, so it is not practical or even possible for a sole individual to physically be at each active landfill site.

While periodic surveys and analysis of the facilities by environmental engineers help, continuous, real-time, remote monitoring of landfill gas with a FleetZOOM FZ400 landfill gas monitoring system will provide landfill managers with data needed to respond to any number of possible issues quickly, before they turn into serious problems.

Landfill flares are controlled by electronics, typically made up of temperature controllers and relay logic systems or PLCs (programmable logic controllers). The control systems operate the blower motors, valves and control the solenoids that comprise the landfill Methane flare system.

The landfill flare system often uses a large blower motor (20 hp typically) to pull a vacuum on the landfill across a network of PVC pipe gas extractors throughout the site. These extractors are like straws stuck deep into the landfill, so the blower can literally suck the gas out of decomposing organic material.

At the blower motor, the network of gas extraction pipes converge and the landfill Methane gas stream is routed into a single large pipe with a typical flow rate of 500 to 5000 SCFM. The flare controller may employ Nitrogen actuated valves to regulate this flow. The Methane concentration level is typically in the 30% to 60% range. It is routed to a flare stack where the gas is burned.

At the flare stack and landfill methane monitoring system like the FleetZOOM FZ400 is used to monitor the Methane, Oxygen and Nitrogen concentrations of the gas as well as the blower volume in SCFM and combustion temperature.

The flare controller may use Propane to get the burn started with an electronically controlled spark. A landfill gas operations manager directly benefits from continuous, real-time, remote monitoring of the control electronics which report the gas flow rate, flare temperature, Nitrogen pressure and Propane pressure with the FleetZOOM landfill flare monitoring system. Other uses include the monitoring the totalizers for flow. These flow values can be used in reports filed with cities or municipalities, as well as the EPA.

Due to the large vacuums, and the pressure and temperature differentials at work in a landfill gas system, the Methane gas extraction process, a liquid condensate comes out of the gas stream. Ideally this occurs at the flare stack in what is often referred to as the knock-out pot.

This liquid condensate commonly known as "effluent" or "leachate" in landfill terminology is a waste by-product and must be watched with an effluent monitoring system. Depending on the gas system's flow rate, hundreds to thousands of gallons of leachate may be produced per day during the gas extraction process.

Leachate extraction, storage, and disposal systems are additional necessities in the gas operations of landfills. Leachate is condensed out of the gas stream from the vacuum pulled on the landfill to extract the Methane gas. Leachate collection sumps, tanks, pumps, wet wells, knock-out pots are among the many leachate management components used to process this waste.

By remotely monitoring these systems with the FleetZOOM FZ400, specifically leachate tank levels, pump run times, duty cycles and faults, the gas operations manager will respond to any type of leachate collection issue quickly.