Landfill monitoring and control system

• US 20010005812A1
• Filed: 12/04/2000
• Published: 06/28/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/1996
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Landfill Gas & Environmental Products Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Landfill Gas & Environmental Products Incorporated
• Inventors: Brookshire, Ronald L., Brookshire, Travis, Beach, James Joseph, Brookshire, Donald, Kalantar-Nejad, Seyed Mohammed Reza
• Application Number:
  US09/729,291
• Publication Number:
  US 20010005812A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/6
• CPC Class Codes: B09B 1/00 Dumping solid waste
• CPC Class Codes: G01F 1/42 Orifices or nozzles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02W 30/30 Landfill technologies aiming to mitigate methane emissions

Abstract

An automated, computer-controlled landfill gas recovery system includes a number of equipment vaults, with each vault being associated with one or more wells in the landfill. The wells are in fluid communication with a piping system located in the associated vault, with the piping system including a main pneumatic control valve that can be adjusted to establish gas flow rate through the well or wells. Also, each vault includes a shielded enclosure that holds sensors and a local vault controller for generating signals representative of flow rate, vacuum, and oxygen/methane/carbon dioxide content of the gas being extracted from the well. These signals are sent to a remote computer. Based on the signals generated by the sensors, the computer communicates with each vault controller to control the pneumatic control valve of each vault to establish a gas flow rate from the associated well as appropriate to accord with one of several user-selected process control regimes.

Claims