Methane oxidation in landfill cover soils, is a 10% default value reasonable?

We reviewed literature results from 42 determinations of the fraction of methane oxidized and 30 determinations of methane oxidation rate in a variety of soil types and landfill covers. Both column measurements and in situ field measurements were included. The means for the fraction of methane oxidized on transit across the soil covers ranged from 22 to 55% from clayey to sandy material.

Effect of temperature and oxidation rate on carbon-isotope fractionation during methane oxidation by landfill cover materials.

The quantification of methane oxidation is one of the major uncertainties in estimating CH4 emissions from landfills. Stable isotope methods provide a useful field approach for the quantification of methane oxidation in landfill cover soils. The approach relies upon the difference between the isotopic composition of oxidized gas at the location of interest and anaerobic zone CH4 and knowledge of alpha(ox), a term that describes the isotopic fractionation of the methanotrophic bacteria in their discrimination against (13)CH4.

Methane oxidation in water-spreading and compost biofilters.

This study evaluated two biofilter designs to mitigate methane emissions from landfill vents. Water-spreading biofilters were designed to use the capillarity of coarse sand overlain by a finer sand to increase the active depth for methane oxidation. Compost biofilters consisted of 238-L barrels containing a 1:1 mixture (by volume) of compost to expanded polystyrene pellets.