Electrical resistivity compared to moisture content and temperature at bioreactor landfill scale.

Summary Industrial operators need spatial measurements to manage their bioreactor landfill if they want to reach a homogeneous bio-mechanical degradation of the waste mass and a biogas production in accordance to the biochemical methane potential evaluated. Electrical resistivity tomography is non intrusive and allows 2D or 3D description of waste mass electrical resistivity. Volumetric water content and temperature are known to influence waste electrical resistivity. For the first time in France, a same waste cell deposit was instrumented with electrical resistivity tomography device, temperature sensors and volumetric water content probes. The objective was to increase confidence on resistivity interpretation. The wide range of temperature recorded demonstrates its influence when waste resistivity has to be compared. Moisture content variations were too weak to explain the resistivity evolution observed.