Persistence times of refractory materials in landfills: A review of rate limiting conditions by mass transfer and reaction kinetics

Abstract Monitoring programs at closed landfills show that transformation of plastics, wood, and metals continue long after the active decomposition of the waste fractions are considered as complete. Studies conducted in natural anaerobic environments (e.g., marine sediments and rocks) provide insight for slow degradation mechanisms involving coupling of thermodynamically favorable and unfavorable reactions and biochemical transformations by microbial consortia. These transformations occur at much slower rates through more complex and less obvious mechanisms and are not evident until after the primary decomposition mechanisms become less significant. This study presents a review of the conditions that limit the mass transfer and reaction kinetics for anaerobic transformations in landfills and provides new insights for reaction mechanisms (e.g., anaerobic oxidation and anaerobic corrosion) that occur at relatively slow rates in mature landfills. Conditions and mechanisms of slow transformations by microbial and chemical activities with relatively small energy yields and availability of electron acceptors (e.g., inorganics, plastics) and/or diffusion of gas and moisture into the previously isolated areas in waste deposits were discussed. Time scales for mass transfer and reaction kinetics were compared under anaerobic conditions for different waste components deposited at municipal solid waste landfills. Half-lives of different materials under anaerobic conditions were estimated and compared. Emergence of syntrophic methanogenic communities and conditions for triboelectric effects were evaluated as possible electron transfer mechanisms between waste layers for occurrence of extremely slow transformations of wastes deposited in landfills.