Predicting and comparing infiltration rates through various landfill cap systems using water-balance models – A case study

This work is about the first application, to a mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) plant of Rome, of the contents of the Guidelines document (CTI, 2012b) elaborated in August 2012 by Italian Thermotechnical Committee (CTI), associated to the National Agency for Standardization (UNI), in accordance with European standards UNI EN 15359 (2011) and UNI EN 15442 (2011). This document represents the Italian technical standard in order to establish all the characteristics, definitions, sampling methods, parameters of interest and analytical methods for the Solid Recovered Fuels (SRF). Furthermore a comparison between the obtained data (empirical data) and the results obtained by several characterization campaigns performed during 2007-2011 in the same plant (theoretical data) has been performed. Since UNI EN 15359 (2011) identifies 125 classes of limit values (on the basis of NCV, chlorine and mercury contents) to define SRF, three outgoing flows from the plant were analysed: the former Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), the RDF scraps (i.e. scraps outgoing from the air classification process) and the stabilization scraps (outgoing from the sieving of bio-stabilized waste); in order to evaluate possible classification of these materials as Solid Recovered Fuels in order to recover a higher quantity of non-hazardous waste to be utilized in waste-to-energy plants. First of all a sampling method based on CTI Guidelines “Linee Guida 11” (2012), fitted on the case study MBT plant based in Rome, has been carried. This sampling method has been tested to evaluate its feasibility at real scale. Analytic measures have been done on this material and a first classification of SRF has been performed; the comparison of theoretical results with the empirical one has shown different classifications; the reasons must be sought in the first place to the different number of values available, and secondly to the nature of the wastes