The influence of perforation of foil reactors on greenhouse gas emission rates during aerobic biostabilization of the undersize fraction of municipal wastes

Abstract The opinion, that the use of foil reactors for the aerobic biostabilization of municipal wastes is not a valid method, due to vulnerability to perforation, and risk of uncontrolled release of exhaust gasses, was verified. This study aimed to determine the intensity of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the atmosphere from the surface of foil reactors in relation to the extent of foil surface perforation. Three scenarios were tested: intact (airtight) foil reactor, perforated foil reactor, and torn foil reactor. Each experimental variant was triplicated, and the duration of each experiment cycle was 5 weeks. Temperature measurements demonstrated a significant decrease in temperature of the biostabilization in the torn reactor. The highest emissions of CO 2 , CO and SO 2 were observed at the beginning of the process, and mostly in the torn reactor. During the whole experiment, observed emissions of CO, H 2 S, NO, NO 2 , and SO 2 were at a very low level which in extreme cases did not exceed 0.25 mg t −1 .h −1 (emission of gasses mass unit per waste mass unit per unit time). The lowest average emissions of greenhouse gases were determined in the case of the intact reactor, which shows that maintaining the foil reactors in an airtight condition during the process is extremely important.