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Landfill gas generated by municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills is the world’s third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the accumulation of landfill gas in waste piles can trigger instability in landfill piles. Based on the exponential distribution pattern of the variation of gas permeability coefficients with burial depth measured in situ, this paper presents an analytical solution for landfill gas-pressure distribution that is more in line with on-site conditions and has been verified by numerical calculations. Compared with cases where the gas permeability coefficient of landfill piles remains constant, the consideration that the gas permeability coefficient of MSW decreases exponentially with increasing burial depth is more likely to cause the accumulation of landfill gas at the landfill bottom, leading to higher gas pressure that can be more than five times higher than that in the former case. Based on a numerical analysis of gas extraction simulations, constant pressure gas extraction is relatively more effective in that a relative pressure of −0.1 kPa can lower the gas pressure in almost the entire pile, while bottom drainage fails to completely collect landfill gas even using a flux of 10–30 times ML.

Abstract As an important indicator, permeability can predict the gas drainage yield and prevent the mine gas disasters. We first reviewed our previous inversion method to investigate permeability coefficient of gas in coal particles; however, the relationship between permeability and adsorption pressure had not been summarized and explained theoretically. Here, a permeability evolution model including two crucial parameters of initial permeability and deformation coefficient was developed. The inversion gas permeability coefficients were converted into permeability, and then, the permeability of the same coal sample was fitted according to the evolution model. The results show that (i) the modeled results are matched reasonably well with the inversion permeability data, and thus, this model has been validated; and (ii) as volatile matter content increases, the initial permeability decreases exponentially, but the deformation coefficient basically grows in a linear trend. These two parameters are coupling to lead to a negative exponential decrease in permeability as gas pressure rises.