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Special Issue "Sustainable Management and Remediation of Landfills"

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Waste and Recycling".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 29 February 2024 | Viewed by 2407

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Jongwan Eun

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), Lincoln, NE, USA 68588-0531
Interests: geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering; multiphase mass transport through porous and nonporous medium; unsaturated behavior of geomaterials; advanced application of sensing technics for geosystem; sustainable geotechnics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Jiannan Chen

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
Interests: smart barrier materials for waste containment; mining waste and low-level radioactive waste management; slope remediation and stability; flow and contaminant transport in saturated and unsaturated soils; life-cycle analysis for solid waste management; resource recovery.

Dr. Juan Hou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Mechanics and Engineering Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
Interests: geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering; multiphase mass transport through porous and nonporous medium; unsaturated behavior of geomaterials; advanced application of sensing technics for geosystems; sustainable geotechnics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Waste containment systems (e.g., landfills) are engineered for the final disposal of solid and hazardous waste. The management of landfill assures the integrity of waste and earthen barriers, and controls the release of contaminants. However, the current practice of landfill management reveals emerging issues that need solutions: (1) on the environmental side, the emission of landfill gases (e.g., greenhouse gases, volatile organic compound contributions, and odor gases) and leachate leakage contribute to climate change and health risks; (2) on the operation side, the inspection of landfill, including landfill cover integrity, emission, capacity, and settlement, still rely on costly and time-consuming labor-based technologies.

As such, this Special Issue aims to synthesize advanced technologies and current practices to address the issues surrounding the sustainable management and remediation of landfills. We invite studies explicitly highlighting ongoing and potential future efforts, technologies, and approaches for emission and leakage control, and studies developing prompt monitoring plans and techniques for landfill management. This Special Issue fits the scope of Sustainability by investigating solutions and practices for waste, recycling, and sustainable management.

Both original research articles and reviews are welcome in this Special Issue. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Environmental and geological engineering properties of alternative materials that can be used for landfill barriers, as well analysis of their performance;
The efficacy of regulated composites or alternative barriers to contain landfill gas, leachate, and emerging contaminants;
Advanced technology, modeling, and practice for high-efficiency and economic landfill management and operation.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jongwan Eun
Dr. Jiannan Chen
Dr. Juan Hou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

landfill
management
remediation
emission
leakage
operation

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle

Pore Scale Simulation of Rheology Properties on Residence Time of Polymer Hydrogel and Hydraulic Conductivity of Bentonite Polymer Composite Geosynthetic Clay Liners

Hao Li

Jinbang Zhang

and

Juan Hou

Sustainability 2023, 15(17), 13052; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151713052 - 30 Aug 2023

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Abstract

Flow in an idealized bentonite polymer composite geosynthetic clay liner (BPC-GCL) containing bentonite comprising two idealized circular granules was simulated using a COMSOL hydrodynamic model. The effect of the polymer rheology properties, including viscosity, surface tension, and contact angle, on the hydraulic conductivity of BPC-GCLs was investigated. The results showed that the hydraulic conductivity of BPC-GCLs significantly decreased by 2–4 orders of magnitude with polymer loadings of 3.3%, 6.5%, and 9.8% compared to conventional geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs). The polymer rheology properties are critical to the residence time and the hydraulic conductivity of BPC-GCLs. The residence time increases with the viscosity, surface tension, and contact angle of polymer hydrogel. In the overall study, the hydraulic conductivities increased significantly from 2.80 × 10⁻⁹ m/s to 1.40 × 10⁻⁷ m/s when the residence time was insufficient. When the viscosity of the polymer hydrogel is 5000 Pa∙s, 1 × 10⁴ Pa∙s, and 1 × 10⁵ Pa∙s, the residence time of the polymer hydrogel in the domain of BPC-GCLs is 14 min, 23 min, and 169 min, respectively. When the surface tension of the polymer hydrogel is 0 N/m, 0.01 N/m, and 0.02 N/m, the residence time of the polymer hydrogel in the domain of BPC-GCLs is 9 min, 17 min, and 23 min, respectively. When the contact angle between the polymer hydrogel and the NaB granules is 30° to 60°, the residence time of the polymer hydrogel in the domain of BPC-GCLs is 9 min and 33 min. These few minutes can approximate the actual passage of several days in physical time. When the viscosity, the surface tension, and the contact angle are higher than 1 × 10⁶ Pa∙s, 0.03 N/m, and 60°, the residence time of the polymer hydrogel in the domain of BPC-GCLs tends to be very long, which means that a very low hydraulic conductivity of BPC-GCLs can be maintained in the very long term. This research unveils a nuanced and profound correlation between the rheological properties of the polymer hydrogel and the resulting hydraulic conductivity. This discovery enhances the understanding of the potential to tailor hydrogel characteristics for BPC-GCLs. The advanced model developed in this study also lays the groundwork for constructing a more realistic model that considers irregular geometries, interconnected pores, and diverse polymer distributions within the pore spaces. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Remediation of Landfills)

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Open AccessArticle

Case Study-Based Integrated Assessment of Former Waste Disposal Sites Transformed to Green Space in Terms of Ecosystem Services and Land Assets Recovery

Zane Vincevica-Gaile

Juris Burlakovs

Maija Fonteina-Kazeka

and

Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3256; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043256 - 10 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1771

Abstract

Growing global production leads to continuing generation of waste, part of which still ends its life cycle in landfills and dumps. Despite the efforts of waste reuse and recycling and waste self-degradation, existing and old landfills and dumps remain a huge challenge for the future. The majority of landfills can be identified as non-sanitary and can be designated as existing or former dumps, meaning hills or fields of abandoned garbage and degraded inert waste masses without any or with little aftercare maintenance. In contrast, the term ‘landfill’ refers to legally organized waste disposal sites created in a controlled manner, according to modern environmentally responsible standards. The paper gives a case study-based integrated assessment of closed and revitalized waste disposal sites that have undergone a functional change from ‘lost territories’ to primarily green space beneficial for society and the urban environment, in terms of ecosystem services estimation based on the criteria evaluation approach and monetary assessment of land assets value recovery potential. The chosen four case studies (in the United States, Australia, Poland and Estonia) serve as successful examples of a sustainable degraded site revitalization gateway indicating opportunities for accelerating land value through the prism of ecosystem services estimations and spatial planning criteria. Beneficial value of land assets after site revitalization is assessed in monetary terms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Remediation of Landfills)

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