Grant: Alliance Grants

Methane (CH4) a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 86 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year period has been described as the "low hanging fruit", i.e., an easy target for reducing GHG emissions. Methane Oxidation Biosystems (MOB) are considered a low-cost treatment approach to reduce residual and fugitive emissions from landfills, both in terms of capital, operation and maintenance costs. It is critical to Canada's efforts to reduce GHG emissions to deploy MOBs quickly, across the country. Many consider biowindows one of the most promising type of MOB. However, biowindow design has received little attention, leaving potential end-users with a rather empty design tool-box. The PI has identified knowledge gaps in biosystems design that has plagued the performance of several visited in the past. This project involves an integrated partnership of end users, service providers, academia (including three young researchers from three universities), and regulators whose common goal is to develop design tools for biowindows, and demonstrate their effectiveness in treating fugitive and residual methane emissions from landfills. The practical outcome of the project is greater control over emissions from landfills, including the after-care phase, i.e., when gas collections systems have been shut down. Once the partnership agreed on a conceptual framework that is the baseline for this proposal the PI and Co-PIs developed a comprehensive set of activities that involves extensive laboratory and field work, in addition to numerical modeling that will later be used as predictive tool for the determination of the number of biowindows needed in a specific site. The unique documentation we will gather will be obtained from biowindows installed directly on our partners' sites, which will facilitate technology transfer. It is noteworthy that the knowledge and tools that will be developed may also be applied, mutatis mutandis, to other major methane emitters, such as wastewater or gas production facilities.