3.4. Production of CH4
In terms of the previous work (He et al., 2005b), the methane produced mainly in methanogenic reactor in the two-phase landfill system. Thus, the methane produced by the NBL and BL were only collected from the NBLM and BLM, respectively. The NBLM and BLM were fed with S5 and S4, respectively. The CH4 concentrations from both reactors reduced gradually with the decrease of COD concentrations in influents. Furthermore, the CH4 concen- tration from the NBLM was always lower than that from the BLM, corresponding to the COD concentration of S5 being lower than that of S4. During the first 151 days, the CH4 concentration decreased from initial 80.1% to 47.2% on day 151 in the BLM, while it reduced from initial70.2% to 13.6% in the NBLM. From day 151 onwards, the CH4 concentrations in the NBLM and BLM were below detection limit (data not shown).
The relationship between CH4 production and input COD load in the NBLM and BLM was further analyzed statistically. The correlation coefficient and regression equation are listed in Table 4. The results indicated that there existed linear relationship between CH4 production and input COD load, and there was no difference in con- version efficiency between the NBLM and BLM. However, the accumulative CH4 production from the BLM was 1.72 times higher than that from the NBLM because of denitri-fication in NBL consuming the organic matter.