Atmospheric Environment 35 (2001) 3445–3451 Surface emission of landﬁll gas from solid waste landﬁll Jin-Won Park*, Ho-Chul Shin Department of Chemical Engineering, Yonsei University, 134 Shinchon Sudaemoon-ku, Seoul 120-749, South Korea Received 20 July 2000; received in revised form 17 January 2001; accepted 24 January 2001 Abstract The surface emission of landﬁll gas (LFG) was studied to estimate the amount of LFG eﬄux from solid waste landﬁlls using an air ﬂux chamber. LFG eﬄux increased as atmospheric temperature increased during the day, and the same pattern for the surface emission was observed for the change of seasons. LFG eﬄux rate decreased from summer throughwinter.TheaverageLFGeﬄuxratesofwinter,springandsummerwere0.1584,0.3013and0.8597m 3 m 2 h 1 respectively.ThetotalamountofsurfaceemissionwascalculatedbasedontheseasonalLFGeﬄuxrateandthelandﬁll surface area. From the estimates of LFG generation, it is expected that about 30% of the generated LFG may be released through the surface without extraction process. As forced extraction with a blower proceeded, the extraction wellpressuredecreasedfrom1100to–100mmH 2 O,andtheLFGsurfaceeﬄuxdecreasedmarkedlyabove80%.Thus, the utilization of LFG by forced extraction would be the good solution for global warming and air pollution by LFG. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Landﬁll; Landﬁll gas; LFG eﬄux; Surface eﬄux rate; Flux chamber; Forced extraction; Air pollution 1. Introduction Industrialization due to economic growth and in- creasingconsumptioncauseincreaseinsolidwastes.The most common disposal method for municipal solid wastes (MSW) is burial in landﬁlls since the usage of intermediate treatments such as incineration, pyrolysis, and recycles are not actively practiced to eﬀectively remove the wastes in Korea (Lee et al., 1996). Most of the landﬁlls are managed by a simple landﬁll method, and it creates secondary pollution such as water pollution by leachate, leakage of gases, and bad odors (Allen et al., 1997; Ham et al., 1993; US EPA, 1977). Organics in the wastes decompose to produce CH 4 and CO 2 gases, trace amounts of toxic substances, and bad odors, which are the side products of decomposition. CH 4 and CO 2 , both greenhouse gases, contribute to global warming. CH 4 , in particular, is a very potent greenhouse gas which is almost 25 times more powerful thanCO 2 (Heetal.,1997).Asigniﬁcantamountofsolid waste landﬁll gas eventually makes its way to the atmosphere. Landﬁlls comprise the principal source of anthropogenic CH 4 emission and are estimated to account for 3–19% of anthropogenic CH 4 emission globally (US EPA, 1994). The current increase in concern for the environment has highlighted the deleterious eﬀects of CH 4 and CO 2 from landﬁll. The recovery of landﬁll gases for use as an energy resource has become the center of interest since it solves both environmental pollution and energy shortage (Powell et al., 1992; Whalen et al., 1990). A direct emission measurement approach using a ﬂux chamber measured emission rates of LFG from con- taminated soil and water (Eklund, 1992). Methane emissionsweremeasuredusingstaticenclosureandinert atmospheric tracer methods. Both have inherent advan- tages and disadvantages (Czepiel et al., 1996). But these ﬂux techniques showed excellent agreement with 510% diﬀerence (Mosher et al., 1999). Therefore, the ﬂux chambermethodswasusedtoestimatetheeﬄuxratesof LFG emission through the Sudokwon landﬁll in Korea. *Corresponding author. Tel: +82-2-2123-2763, fax: +82-2- 312-6401. E-mail addresses: jwpark@yonsei.ac.kr (J.-W. Park), laputa777@yonsei.ac.kr (H.-C. Shin). 1352-2310/01/$-see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S1352-2310(01)00118-2