Evaluation of an Odour Emission Factor (OEF) to estimate odour emissions from landfill surfaces

Emission factors are fundamental tools for air quality management. Odour Emission Factors (OEFs) can be developed in analogy with the emission factors defined for other chemical compounds, which relate the quantity of a pollutant released to the atmosphere to a given associated activity. Landfills typically represent a common source of odour complaint; for this reason, the development of specific OEFs allowing the estimation of odour emissions from this kind of source would be of great interest both for the landfill design and management. This study proposes an up-to-date methodology for the development of an OEF for the estimation of odour emissions from landfills, thereby focusing on the odour emissions related to the emissions of landfill gas (LFG) from the exhausted landfill surface. The proposed approach is an “indirect” approach based on the quantification of the LFG emissions from methane concentration measurements carried out on an Italian landfill. The Odour Emission Rate (OER) is then obtained by multiplying the emitted gas flow rate by the LFG odour concentration. The odour concentration of the LFG emitted through the landfill surface was estimated by means of an ad hoc correlation investigated between methane concentration and odour concentration. The OEF for the estimation of odour emissions from landfill surfaces was computed, considering the landfill surface as the activity index, as the product between the mean specific LFG flux emitted through the surface resulting from the experimental campaigns, equal to 0.39 l/m2/h, and its odour concentration, which was estimated to be equal to 105′000 eq. ouE/m3, thus giving an OEF of 0.011 ouE/m2/s. This value, which is considerably lower than those published in previous works, should be considered as an improved estimation based on the most recent developments of the research in the field of odour sampling on surface sources.