El proyecto GasControl reduce el impacto ambiental en el vertedero.

This project is developed in collaboration with the company Atlas through an R&D from ACCIO Cilis to help The scope of climate change and with the main objective of reducing the residual gas that appears in waste deposits.

The specific gas control objectives are: to provide a simple and robust measurement tool for Biodegradable organic carbon from solid waste and to determine the potential impact of biogas generation from solid waste to carefully calculate methane emissions, among others.

Finding control in landfills

The Environment and Simulation Process Group – Gespa from IQ and the company Atlas Managed Media SL collaborate on the Gascontrol project, an ambitious project focused on Developing and scaling an innovative technology to accurately measure potential greenhouse gases (GHGs) in solid waste before final disposal in waste deposits.

Increasing GHG levels in the atmosphere is a global issue with a direct impact on climate change. A significant portion of these emissions comes from the decomposition of solid waste, generating methane. In Catalonia, in the last year, 7,550,000 tons of solid waste were generated, and the management of these wastes accounted for 6.7% (2.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent/year, in 2020) of the region’s total emissions, according to data from the Office of Climate Change (2021).

Controlled landfills are the main source of emissions derived from waste treatment (77% in 2020), due to methane (CH4) generation, which accounts for 91% of gases emitted in the waste sector. Because methane has a global warming potential 28 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period, its release into the atmosphere significantly contributes to the planet’s global warming.

The GasControl project is led by Dr. Maria Auset Vallejo and Dr. Oriol Pou Ibar from the Gespa group and its funding was obtained through the Nublis R+D Call 2023 technological projects, for projects within the scope of climate change, granted by Acció – Agència per a la competitivitat de l’empresa.

Atlas Managed Media SL, specialized in handling special waste, Manages the only controlled landfill in Catalonia located in Castellolí, with a management capacity of over 3,000,000 m³. This activity was declared a public service by the government of Catalonia. Atlas manages all hazardous waste generated in Catalonia, ensuring that the final destination is compliant with current regulations.

Atlas and the Gespa group from IQS have been collaborating since 2018 to develop this New technology for measuring gas generated by waste. The main goal is to develop a precise and detailed measurement tool for biodegradable matter resulting from the decomposition of organic material or solid waste with the potential for GHG generation once deposited in a landfill.

The importance of this measurement lies in the absence of international consensus on how to Correctly measure the content of biodegradable organic matter in waste. European legislation does not propose an official method, although its 2001 project refers to the AT4 respiration index.

«Continuing to work and collaborate with IQS on this project provides us with very specific knowledge in a field that has been under-studied. Perhaps Determining and measuring the fermentable organic matter of waste is of great importance to optimize proper waste management,» says Xavier Mondet from Atlas Company.

GasControl: technological objectives

The experimental method previously developed by Atlas and the IQS Gespa group uses the AT4 respiration method to Calculate the biodegradable carbon from waste, generated as CO2 over a certain period of time.

This Method allows for the determination of the potential generation of CO2 and CH4 (both in landfills and in energy recovery) from different types of waste, including: municipal solid waste; Municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plant; Solid industrial waste; Leachate from mechanical biological treatment plants for municipal waste fraction; and waste from biological treatment plants (anaerobic composting or digestion) of the organic fraction of municipal waste.

The GasControl project is now focusing on designing an industrial prototype to scale this measurement system, with the following objectives:

• Optimization of the degradable method for measuring the carbon in solid waste, designed and tested.
• Design of an industrial degradable carbon measurement prototype, easy to operate, transportable, with remote reading, and graphical visualization of real data.
• Validation and demonstration of the viability of the new equipment at the Castellolí landfill.
• Simulation of GHG generation for each waste and landfill and determination of future waste is shown this year, of great interest for waste management policy planning and definition.

The ultimate goal is to optimize waste management globally, allowing for decisions on final destination, Minimizing its impact on the environment and optimizing its energy recovery.