The city of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, made an enormous effort to clean up its water bodies by eliminating the discharge points in the city as well as the collection and treatment of 100% of the produced wastewater. However, these improvements brought unexpected consequences in the production of gases and the generation of offensive odors from the wastewater collection, treatment and final disposal system.

   This problem has forced Cartagena to define and develop a strategy that under a continuous improvement scheme has allowed diagnosing scenarios according to the particularities of the territory, evaluating alternatives, verifying the effectiveness of the interventions carried out from different fronts and, based on this, carrying out the pertinent adjustments focused on preventing, controlling and mitigating the generation and emission of offensive odors.

  Fig. 1.: Chromatogram comparing sampling method. Black: tube spiked with siloxanes and toluene; pink: gaseous sample in sampling bag of siloxanes and toluene loaded onto tube; blue: gaseous sample in canister loaded onto tube There is increasing interest in the usage of biogas produced from wastewaters, anaerobic digesters and landfill sites as a source of green energy. Biogas generated from these types of sites require process monitoring due to contamination with siloxanes derived from hygiene products, detergent, antifoams, etc. Siloxanes are troublesome impurities in biogases in engine sources.

   The combustion of biogas can lead to deposits of silicon dioxide particles which can cause problems and damage different kind of gas engines or turbines through their build up and via corrosion.The objective of this study was to develop a method on a thermal desorption unit coupled to a gas chromatography and mass spectrometer (TD-GC-MS) to identify and quantify siloxanes present in a representative biogas sample with a low detection limit (µg/m3). Enabling the occurrence of siloxanes in a biogas matrix and efficiency of the removal processes present in the industry to be monitored.

Quintero   The sanitary landfill, located in the city of Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia, is operated by the company Atesa de Occidente S.A ESP, here the disposal of waste from department of Risaralda, some municipalities of Caldas and Norte del Valle del Cauda is carried out, it´s receiving 800 Tons/day, causing impacts to the environment by the emission of offensive gases and odors, causing problems to community.

   In Colombia, the offensive odour problem, is regulated with the Resolution 1541 of 2013, define the levels of inmission, according to the generating activities, carry to landfill to take measures to reduce, and to quantify odors too.

C. Velásquez1, C. Hernández2, J. Quintero1

1. Tratamientos Químicos Industriales S.A.S
2. Atesa de occidente S.A ESP.

Page 1 of 4

All the content here under Creative Commons license