20° SIMPOSIO INTERNAZIONALE SU GESTIONE DEI RIFIUTI
RECUPERO DI RISORSE E DISCARICA SOSTENIBILE / 13-17 OTTOBRE 2025

Landfill gas: modelling and management

THURSDAY 1 APRIL 2021 / 10:00 - 13:00 (GMT+2)
Marco Ritzkowski
, Hamburg University of Technology (DE)





The webinar "Landfill gas: modelling and management" provides a comprehensive overview on biogas production from landfills, its extraction and transportation as well as possibilities for LFG utilization. Based on the fundamentals of anaerobic fermentation processes, basics on LFG production modeling will be presented, including the approaches used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for Greenhouse gas emissions calculation. Further examples for the target-oriented use of the model results will be provided.

Problems and risks associated with LFG are highlighted, such as explosion protection and options for LFG cleaning and upgrading. A central aspect of the webinar exists with the exemplarily design and dimensioning of a LFG extraction system for a virtual landfill. The webinar concludes with the demonstration of different possibilities for energy recovery from LFG. Here, examples for the more traditional utilization in gas engines and latest developments in LFG upgrading will be discussed. In addition, an overview on different possibilities for poor gas treatment will be presented. Nowadays poor gas treatment (i.e. LFG relatively low in methane concentration) becomes more important since many landfills show reduced gas generation rates due to the ban of organic wastes for landfilling EU member states.





TOPICS THAT WILL BE COVERED:

  • Background and motivation
  • Overview on LFG
  • LFG generation and its calculation by means of modelling
  • LFG characteristics in terms of components
  • LFG collection
  • LFG treatment & utilization
  • Poor gas treatment
  • Conclusions



Marco Ritzkowski is a lecturer at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Sustainable Resources and Waste Management since 2008, and associate professor at Polytech, Peter the Great, St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Russia since 2018. In 2005 he received his PhD from TUHH. He participated in several national and international research-projects regarding the landfill-behaviour of municipal solid waste, waste pre-treatment and aftercare of MSW landfills and he was the responsible researcher for the scientific attendance of the German R&D-project 'Aerobic in-situ stabilisation of landfills'. Since 2009 he is managing international projects in connection with the impact of climate change on the environment as well as aftercare of solid waste landfills. Marco Ritzkowski is Managing Director of the International Waste Working Group (IWWG) since 2011 and leader of the IWWG Task Group on Landfill Aeration since 2008.