Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84

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Resources, Conservation & Recycling

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Full length article

Economic potential of leachate evaporation by using landfill gas: A system MARK

dynamics approach
⁎
Rui Zhaoa, , Beidou Xib, Yiyun Liua, Jing Sub, Silin Liua
a
Faculty of Geosciences and Environmental Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 611756, China
b
State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Simulation and Control of Groundwater Pollution, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing
100012, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: A system dynamics (SD) approach that models the economic potential of a regional incineration plant by using
System dynamics landfill gas to evaporate waste leachate is proposed in this study. A case study is provided to demonstrate
Incineration plant application of the proposed approach, which takes an incineration plant and an adjacent sanitary landfill located
Leachate evaporation at Chengdu City, China into account. Two scenarios are divided by different ratios of leachate evaporation and
Landfill gas
landfill gas utilization to examine the economic revenues obtained by the incineration plant. The optimal
scenario with the best economic performance is identified to incorporate into future waste management practice.
The limitations of this approach are discussed, laying a foundation for further work.

1. Introduction
With population growth, municipal waste disposal has become a
primary issue during urbanization (Pires et al., 2011; Marshall and
Farahbakhsh, 2013). Despite great efforts have been made in waste
reduction by reuse or recycle, a large number of municipal waste is
disposed in landfill sites, maintaining a comparatively high proportion,
around 60% (Mian et al., 2016).
Leachate is generated during biochemical process of waste disposal,
including suspended solids, dissolved components from degradation of
the waste by various micro-organisms (Renou et al., 2008; Mohan and
Gandhimathi, 2009; Puig et al., 2011). Because of its complex and
harmful compounds, waste leachate may pose a substantial risk to
publics (Zhao et al., 2012; Toufexi et al., 2013). Thus, leachate
treatment is considered as one of the most difficult issues in waste-
water treatment, which has aroused greater attentions in waste disposal
(Demirabas, 2011). Generally, there are a number of approaches
regarding its treatment, including biological, physic-chemical treat-
ment, thermal treatment etc (Zou et al., 2014).
Biological treatment is deemed as the conventional treatment for
leachate, which aims to degrade organic compounds by using micro-
organisms to carbon dioxide under aerobic conditions, and to biogas
under anaerobic conditions (Ahmed and Lan, 2012). However, the
biological process is easily inhibited by toxic pollutants within the
leachate (Gotvajn et al., 2011; Torres-Socías et al., 2015). In the case of
older leachate, with lower COD, TOC and BOD5, and a BOD5/COD less
than 0.3, the biological treatment is ineffective due to the high
concentrations of biorefractory contaminants, fulvic acids, ammonium
nitrogen etc (Hermosilla et al., 2009; Kalčíková et al., 2014). For the
physic-chemical approaches, such as flotation, coagulation-floccula-
tion, adsorption, stripping etc., it is usually considered as pre-treat-
ments or post-treatments, in light of leachate stabilization through
aging of the landfill site (Zhu and Liu, 2008; Torres-Socías et al., 2015).
Thermal treatments, e.g. evaporation, distillation, vitrification etc., are
used to separate humic suspensions from leachate, concentrate leachate
into a small volume at or close to crystallization point, thus to reduce its
contained toxicity and non-biodegradability (Yue et al., 2007; Schiopu
and Gavrilescu, 2010). Although the thermal treatments are challenged
by volatile organic compounds (VOCs), ammonia condensate with
exhaust vapor, high inorganic salt concretion etc., it is still suitable to
treat various categories of waste leachate, especially in advantage of
reducing volume of the leachate, and saving total cost (Atabarut and
Ekinci, 2006; Schiopu and Gavrilescu, 2010; Zhao et al., 2012).
As energy supply plays a critical role in the thermal treatment of
waste leachate, using landfill gas (LFG) as an alternative energy source
has been proposed by a number of researchers (Themelis and Ulloa,
2007; Hao et al., 2008; Dudek et al., 2010; Johari et al., 2012). LFG,
mainly constituted by methane and carbon dioxide, if not recovered,
has a global warming potential on climate change (Tan et al., 2014; Liu
et al., 2017). On the contrary, LFG is also deemed as a renewable
energy source, which has been given greater attentions to its develop-
ment of recovery and utilization, e.g., extraction for power generation

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ruizhaoswjtu@gmail.com (R. Zhao).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.04.010
Received 8 December 2016; Received in revised form 19 April 2017; Accepted 20 April 2017
0921-3449/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
R. Zhao et al.
(Niskanen et al., 2013; Arafat et al., 2015).
In order to minimize risk posed by waste disposal, efforts should be
directed at the leachate treatment and landfill gas recovery. However,
most of landfill management practices handle with these two issues
separately, while giving little attention to their connections (Zhao et al.,
2012). For instance, leachate in some developing country is still
transported to local sewage plant for advanced treatment, due to its
comparatively low cost (Fernández-Nava et al., 2014). But this alter-
native has an inefficient performance, not only increases the carrying
capacities of municipal waste water treatment plant, but also causes
complexities in sewage treatment, e.g., any heavy metals or non-
biodegradable organics mixed (Xu et al., 2008). In addition, most of
landfills prefer handling LFG with torching combustion, rather than
extracting for recovery (Smith et al., 2015a; Broun and Sattler, 2016).
From a perspective of sustainable waste disposal, combination of
various treatments is recommended by the “Management of Waste
Hierarchy”, aiming at not only minimizing waste volume and emis-
sions, but also maximizing economic values related to resource
recycling and energy recovery (El-Haggar, 2007; Smith et al., 2015b).
In such context, an alternative management system is proposed by
using LFG to evaporate waste leachate, thus promotes sustainable waste
disposal. A system dynamics (SD) approach is used to model the
economic potential of the alternative system.
Proposed by Forrester in 1956, SD is a method to measure long term
dynamics of a complex system, which is based upon a computer
simulation to understand the possible transformation characterized by
interdependence, interaction, information feedback, and circular caus-
ality among system elements (Lee et al., 2012; Weller et al., 2014; Zhao
and Zhong, 2015).
There are a number of successful cases on waste management by
using SD approach. Kollikkathara et al. (2010) used SD to understand
the interactions between waste generation, landfill capacity and the
related management cost. Similar studies were found by Ciplak and
Barton (2012), and Eleyan et al. (2013), who built SD models to predict
generation of hospital waste. Yuan et al. (2012) and Yuan (2012)
developed SD model to examine impact of different policies on
construction waste management, i.e. waste landfilling charge, invest-
ment in construction and demolition (C & D) waste management, and
major stakeholders’ compliance with waste management regulations.
Yuan and Wang (2014) further employed SD approach to study on
C & D waste disposal charging fee, in order to seek the optimum levying
policy with maximum waste reduction and recovery rate. Similar result
was obtained by Ding et al. (2016), who focused on economic
performance related to construction waste reduction management by
proposing a SD model. Blumberga et al. (2015) examined environ-
mental impact of portable waste batteries collection by using SD
approach. Dace et al. (2014) proposed a SD model to promote
packaging waste management by analyzing a number of policy instru-
ments, including packaging tax, marketing based mechanisms etc.
Sukholthaman and Sharp (2016) investigated how source separation
affected the waste management in Bangkok by using a SD approach.
These previous studies show that SD offers a powerful tool to
provide insight into waste management, which is useful in setting our
approach in context. This study mainly focuses on examination of the
economic performance on a local incineration plant via using LFG as
the combustion improver, to provide a template for its leachate control.
A municipal incineration plant, located at Chengdu City, is considered
purchasing the LFG as the combustion promoter recovered in a landfill
nearby, and the residual heat is used to evaporate its waste leachate. A
number of simulation scenarios are provided, to examine their econom-
ic revenues impacted by altering leachate evaporation and LFG utiliza-
tion, by which the optimal scenario is identified to incorporate into the
future management practice. It is expected that the study may provide
insight into the development of an alternative treatment mode of waste
leachate, thus to promote sustainable waste management.
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84
2. Methodology
An integrated treatment system is proposed as the incineration plant
purchases the purified LFG from its nearby landfill as the alternative
combustion promoter, and handles with its associated leachate by
means of an in-site surface spraying and evaporating. The SD model is
built to seek the optimal economic performance of the incineration
plant, whilst maximizing the ratio of LFG purchase α (the purchase
amount of purified LFG accounted for the total purified LFG), and the
ratio of waste leachate treatment by using evaporation β.
A number of key variables are taken into account, such as annual
municipal waste received for incineration, purchased amount of
purified LFG, annual leachate received for evaporation, annual power
generation, calorific value of waste etc., by which their interactions are
reflected by a casual loop diagram. These variables not only determine
fundamental units of the proposed model, but also define the systems
boundary. The casual loop diagram is intended to help decision makers
to understand the structure and the function of a system, which serves
as a visualized conceptual model for presenting the interrelationships
among the significant variables (Li et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2015). By
using the Vensim software package, two typical feedback loop clusters
are defined, i.e., the reinforcing and balancing loops, as shown in Fig. 1.
Each feedback loop is a closed loop circuit, in which one variable has
either a positive or negative impact on another. There are two
reinforcing loops and two balancing loops within the diagram.
The first reinforcing loop is that the power generation is increased
by receiving more waste for incineration to enhance the economic
performance, and the more economic revenue received will lead to an
increase of waste for incineration. The second reinforcing loop is that
the increase of the leachate evaporation saves the conventional treat-
ment cost to improve the economic performance of the incineration
plant, which gives rise to receiving more municipal waste for incinera-
tion, thus generating more waste leachate. With regard to the balancing
loops, the first is that calorific value of the waste decreases as the
leachate for incineration increases, which results in reduction of the
economic revenue. In such case, the waste received for incineration will
be decreased, thus to reduce the associated leachate. The second is that
the increase of waste for incineration may bring additional cost on
leachate treatment in the conventional way thus has a negative impact
on the economic revenue of the incineration plant, by which the
incineration capacity will be decreased.
Based on the analyses above, these two feedback loop clusters are
defined as follows:
Reinforcing loop clusters: Annual municipal waste received for
incineration → Power generation → Economic performance → Annual
municipal waste received for incineration; Leachate evaporation →
Leachate treatment in conventional way → Economic
performance → Annual municipal waste received for incineration →
Leachate evaporation.
Balancing loop clusters: Leachate evaporation → Calorific value of
waste → Power generation → Economic performance → Annual muni-
cipal waste received for incineration → Leachate evaporation; Annual
municipal waste received for incineration → Leachate treatment in
conventional way → Economic performance → Annual municipal
waste received for incineration.
A stock-flow diagram is constructed to quantify the impacts of the
identified variables, thus to conduct mathematical simulation and
quantitative analysis (Yuan et al., 2011). In contrast with the causal-
loop diagram, a number of auxiliary variables are added to the stock-
flow diagram to ensure the above defined relationships can be
transformed into appropriate mathematical equations (Li et al.,
2014). By employing the Stella software package, a stock-flow diagram
is given in Fig. 2. In order to facilitate understanding of the proposed
system, the key variables in the model are described in Table 1.
The system is further divided into two sub-systems, including a sub-
system of LFG generation and a sub-system of incineration plant
R. Zhao et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84

Fig. 1. Causal loop diagram of the combined system for leachate evaporation.

Fig. 2. Stock-flow diagram of the combined system.

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R. Zhao et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84

Table 1
Key variables in the stock-flow diagram.

Key variable Variable type Key variable Variable type

LFG generation Stock Annual amount of waste treatment Auxiliary variable

ft Flow Annual leachate generation of incinerator Auxiliary variable
ftt Flow The proportion of leachate evaporation Auxiliary variable
ti Constant Quantity of leachate evaporated Auxiliary variable
d Constant Reduction of garbage calorific value Auxiliary variable
MP0 Constant Calorific value of waste incineration per tonne Auxiliary variable
Annual consumption of combustion improver Auxiliary variable Annual cost of leachate treatment Auxiliary variable
Purchased proportion of LFG Auxiliary variable Unit cost of conventional leachate treatment Constant
Annual cost of combustion improver Auxiliary variable Storage ratio of fresh leachate Constant
Feed in tariff Constant Annual electricity generation Auxiliary variable
Purchasing price of purified LFG Constant Thermal efficiency Constant
LFG consumption per month Auxiliary variable Profit of electricity generation Auxiliary variable
Increment of garbage calorific value Auxiliary variable Income of waste incineration Auxiliary variable
Price of waste incineration per tonne Constant Annual revenue of incinerator Flow
Governmental subsidy to the incinerator Constant Amount of coal equivalent Constant
Price of standard coal Constant Annual cost of incinerator Flow
Annual maintenance cost Constant Cost of purified LFG pipeline construction Constant
The proportion of leachate evaporation Auxiliary variable Economic performance of incineration plant Stock

operation, indicated as two stocks. The investigated landfill is in charge d time for duration of waste life, years;
of recovering the LFG in-site, which is exported to the incineration D (t ) annual landfill gas production rate, m3/y t;
plant through pipeline transport. The incineration plant purchases the F the landfill gas production rate of landfill, m3/a;
LFG to substitute coal as the alternative combustion promoter, and
evaporates the waste leachate. The SD model further hypothesizes that Ti the stock of waste in the ith layer, tonne
the purified LFG is provided by the landfill continuously, as well as The sub-system of incineration plant operation mainly focuses on its
there is no significantly technical challenges on the leachate evapora- associated economic revenue. The major income are sourced from the
tion. Once the landfill is in the stage of closure, the integrated operation power generation, municipal waste incineration, cost saving of combus-
is expected to come to an end, and the incineration plant returns to use tion promoter and government subsidy, whilst the main expenditures
coal as the major combustion improver. are the cost of waste incineration, leachate treatment, LFG purchase,
The sub-system of the LFG generation is based upon the Marticorena annual maintenance and construction investment of pipelines transpor-
Dynamics Model, which is a first-order dynamic equation, and has been tation.
widely applied to prediction of LFG production (Bilgili et al., 2009; The power generation by incineration is mainly determined by the
Bicheldey and Latushkina, 2010). The model is given as follows calorific value of waste (Lombardi et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2016a). LFG
(Marticorena et al., 1993): may increase the waste calorific, but the leachate sprayed to the
incinerator may give rise to the decrease of calorific value. Thus, the
⎛ t⎞ purchased LFG α is ensured to a keep a high waste calorific value. With
MP = MP0·exp ⎜ − ⎟
⎝ d⎠ (1) regard to the leachate evaporation β, it should be set within an
appropriate range. Otherwise, excessive leachate may result in reduc-
dMP MP0 ⎛ t⎞ tion of calorific value and production of toxic pollutants.
D(t) = − = ·exp ⎜ − ⎟
dt d ⎝ d⎠ (2)
3. Data collection and quantification
t t ⎡ MP ⎛ t − i ⎞⎤
F= ∑ Ti ·D (t − i ) = ∑ Ti ⎢ 0 ·exp ⎜− ⎟⎥ A municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration plant and a solid waste
i i
⎣ d ⎝ d ⎠⎦ (3)
sanitary landfill located in Chengdu, China are taken as the case study
where: to obtain the data for the proposed SD model. The sanitary landfill is
MP Landfill gas produced by municipal waste (MSW) degradation, about 6 kilometers apart from the incineration plant, and their
m3/tonne; geographic locations are shown in Fig. 3. The designed treatment
MP0 Landfill gas produced from fresh waste, m3/tonne; capacity of the incineration plant is 1200 t per day. There are about
t time, years; 300m3 of fresh leachate produced per day due to waste degradation.

Fig. 3. Geographic location of the investigated incineration plant and landfill.

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R. Zhao et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84

Table 2
Input data related to the key variables.

Parameter Data source Numerical Value

MP0
d The duration of landfill waste d is assigned as 4 years in terms of its stabilization, which is derived by analogy
Ti
Cost of conventional leachate treatment
Purchasing price of purified LFG
Waste incinerated annually
Governmental subsidy to the
incineration plant
Annual utilization of combustion
improver
The price of standard coal
Feed-in Tariff of incineration
Cost of waste incineration
Storage ratio of fresh leachate
Cost of LFG pipeline construction
Maintenance cost of incineration
MP0 of landfill is 85 m3/t, in which the average ratio of the dry organic matter is about 30% in terms of 85 m3/tonne
municipal waste (Wang et al., 2001)
4 years
to Wang et al. (2001).
By field investigation 1.02 million tonne/y
By field investigation 60 Yuan/tonne
As there is no precise price of the purified LFG, it is thus converted by the industrial price of natural gas, set its 3.00 Yuan/m3
benchmark as 3.14 Yuan/m3 (Wang and Lin, 2014). The conversion is depended upon the equivalent calorific
value of purified LFG in contrast to the natural gas, in which the former is about 22,360 kJ/m3, whilst the latter
is 37,260 KJ/m3.
The annual waste disposal by incineration is measured by the predicted population of Chengdu city multiplied 380,000–600,000 t/y
by waste production per capita per day (Li et al., 2015).
Due to a high maintenance cost of the incineration plant, local government is intended to give subsidy to 180 Yuan/tonne
support its operation (Xin-gang et al., 2016).
The mass ratio of municipal waste and combustion improver is set as 0.8:0.2 (MOHURD, 2009) 100,000 t/y
The initial price is set by analogy to Cheng et al. (2007) 310 Yuan/t
By field investigation 0.583 Yuan/kwh
By field investigation 70 Yuan/tonne
By investigation 20%
According to the field investigation, the construction fee for LFG pipeline is 500 Yuan/m, and the distance 300,000 Yuan/y
between landfill and incinerator is 6KM. Thus, the one-off investment is 3 million Yuan with 10 years lifespan
of the pipeline. The annual fee equals to 300,000 Yuan.
By investigation 100 Yuan/tonne

The leachate is pre-treated in-site by using physical method, and then
transferred to a municipal sewage treatment plant for advanced
treatment. The sanitary landfill has started to receive municipal waste
in 1993, and become the primary landfill for waste disposal in
Chengdu. The landfill has an average reception of 959,368 t of waste
annually, and its associated LFG has not taken into account for the
recovery, but emitted after torching, which poses a substantive risk to
the public health and regional environment (Wu and Zheng, 2012).
The input data to the key variables are mainly derived from field
investigation and relevant studies, which are listed in Table 2.
4. Model validation
To ensure the model accuracy, it is necessary to verify the extent to
which the model is consistent with actual situation. In this study,
behavior sensitivity is used for model validation, by which variables
highly sensitive to the system is identified. Moreover, the system
behavior is examined to judge its reasonability, once calibrating the
value corresponding to the identified sensitive variables (Talyan et al.,
2007; Wang et al., 2012). The ratio of purchased LFG and the ratio of
leachate evaporation, which have a certain degree of subjectivity in
further scenario analysis, are considered as two of the most critical
variables affecting the economic performance of the incineration plant.
The sensitivity is calculated by the slope between −20% and +20% of
the variance in the two variables, to measure their influences on the
annual revenue of the investigated incineration plant. The larger the
slope is, the higher the sensitivity of the variables obtains.
By using the x-axis to indicate the purchased ratio of LFG, its change
to influence the annual revenue (indicated by the y-axis) is examined.
The evaporation ratio decreased by 20% gives rise to an increase of
1.6% of the annual revenue, whilst the ratio increased by 20% results in
a decrease of 1.5% of the annual revenue, shown in Fig. 4.
Similarly, using the x-axis to indicate the evaporation ratio, its
variance to influence the annual revenue is also examined. The
purchased proportion of LFG decreased by 20% gives rise to an increase
of 1.0% of the annual revenue, while increasing by 20% it causes a
decrease of 1.1% of the annual revenue, shown in Fig. 5. This result
indicates the availability of the proposed model, which can rationally
predict the outcomes when changes in system behavior occur.
Historical data comparison is also implemented for the behavioral
validity. The common practice is to check whether the simulation
results of certain quantitative variables are in agreement with the
corresponding historical data (Li et al., 2014). This verification is
performed by comparing the relative error between the historical data
and simulation results. However, the proposed system has not been
brought into implementation. It is difficult to compare the model
outcomes directly with the actual economic performance. Especially,
the filed investigation reflects that the project manager is not likely to
reveal the actually annual revenue of the investigated incineration
plant, which has been commissioned in 2008. In such case, the study
selects one of the key variables, i.e., landfill gas production, to validate
the model by comparing its historic generation with the simulation
result. As the investigated landfill has been commissioned for waste
disposal in 1993, the actual LFG production from 1995 to 2015 are in
contrast with the simulation result, shown in Table 3. The relative error
of the tested variable is lower than 18%, with an average error of
3.91%, which reflects that the simulation result is approached to the
actual generation, indicated that proposed SD model is valid to reflect
the real-world situation. Thus, further simulation can be conducted to
investigate the possible variation in economic returns from changes in
the purchased proportion of LFG and the proportion of leachate
evaporation.
5. Simulation results and discussion
5.1. Baseline scenario
To investigate the possible impact of the purchased proportion of
LFG α and the proportion of leachate evaporation β on the annual
revenue of the investigated incineration plant, a benchmark revenue is
determined by the independent operation of the municipal landfill and
incineration plant, as shown in Fig. 6. The simulation period of the
established model is set to 30 years, which is consistent with the
possible situation of LFG production. If the revenue of the integrated
system is lower than the benchmark revenue, the attempt of interaction
is deemed as inapplicable. In such case, the incineration plant is still
intended to use coal instead of LFG as the combustion improver.
Additionlly, if the calorific value is lower than the average waste
calorific value of Chengdu City, i.e., 5631.6 KJ/kg offered by Yang
(2014), the leachate evaporation process will be stopped.

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R. Zhao et al.
Fig. 4. Purchased ratio of LFG for sensitivity analysis.
The initial value of α is transformed by using the principle of heat
conservation based on the purpose of substituting LFG for coal
combustion improver. It has been calculated that 100,000 t of standard
coal can be substituted by 80,000 cubic metre LFG (Zhao et al., 2012), if
the integrated operation has been in application. Thus, the minimum
value of α is set as to 0.0042. For the evaporation ratio β, the initial
value is set as zero due to the conventional treatment for the leachate.
The interval of α and β is determined as [0.0042, 1], [0,1] respectively.
For seeking the optimal range of α and β, two scenarios are built by the
division of the above intervals.
5.2. Simulation results of the scenario 1
In this scenario, the purchased proportion of LFG α is taken as a
fixed value, whilst the proportion of leachate evaporation β is set by
using a table function provided by the Stella Software Package. In order
to examine influences on the annual revenue of the investigated
Fig. 5. Evaporation ratio for sensitivity analysis.
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84
incineration plant with the changes of β, three options are considered:
(1) the leachate evaporation keeps a constant-growth rate, and
considers β growing in a linear function; (2) the growth of evaporation
rate decreases gradually, and considers β growing in a convex function;
(3) the growth of evaporation rate increases gradually, and considers β
growing in a concave function. In each option, the interval of α is
divided into 50 points by taking 0.02 as the step-length, fixed as 0.02,
0.04, 0.06, ultimately as1.0. Each α is given an input value for the SD
simulation, to seek for the maximum annual revenue of the incineration
plant, and its corresponding β. On this basis, the maximum annual
revenues of the three options are obtained, by which the optimum LFG
purchased proportion is determined.
By Taking α = 0.02 as a typical example, Fig. 7 shows the SD
simulation result of the annual revenue. The x axis represents the
simulation time (year), whilst the y axis indicates the annual revenue of
the incineration plant (million Yuan). It is apparent that the annual
revenues corresponding to the three options are above the benchmark
R. Zhao et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84

Table 3 β is taken as a fixed value, whilst the purchased proportion of LFG α is

Behavioral validity based on historical data comparison. set by various functions, i.e., linear, convex and the concave, which is
also divided into three options to investigate their influences on the
Year 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
annual revenue of the incineration plant. In each option, the interval of
Simulation result 7.65 15.30 21.26 25.91 29.52 32.34 34.53 β is divided into 50 points by taking 0.02 as the step-length, fixed as
(Million m3) 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, ultimately as 1.0. Each β is set as an input value for the
Historic data 7.91 13.58 17.97 22.62 25.50 30.35 33.71
simulation, to seek for the maximum annual profit of the incineration
(Million m3)
Relative error 3% 13% 18% 14% 16% 7% 2% plant, and the corresponding α. Take β = 0.02 as a typical case
Year 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 example, three options are divided by analogy to the Scenario 1, i.e.
Simulation result 36.24 37.57 38.60 39.41 40.04 40.53 40.91 (1) the purchased proportion of LFG α keeps a constant-growth rate,
(Million m3) which takes α growth as a linear function; (2) the growth of α decreases
Historic data 37.55 37.87 39.85 41.77 41.98 42.03 42.25
gradually, which takes α growth as a convex function; (3) the growth of
(Million m3)
Relative error 3% 1% 3% 6% 5% 4% 3% α increases gradually, which takes α growth as a concave function.
Year 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 By taking β=0.02 as a typical example, Fig. 8 shows the SD
Simulation result 41.20 41.44 41.62 35.79 31.26 27.73 24.98 simulation result of annual revenue of the incineration plant. It is
(Million m3)
obvious that the annual revenues related to the Option 1 (line 2) and
Historic data 42.49 42.73 43.30 34.98 32.27 29.68 24.63
(Million m3) Option 3 (line 4), is superior to the benchmark revenue (line 1). In the
Relative error 3% 3% 4% 2% 3% 7% 1% Option 1, the maximum revenue occurs at the 6th simulation time node
(year of 2014), as 100.07 Million Chinese Yuan, and the corresponding
proportion of the LFG purchase is 20%. The maximum revenue of the
revenue. With regard to the Option 1, the maximum revenue occurs at Option 3 is higher than that of the Option 1, as 105.06 Million Chinese
the 11th simulation time node (year of 2019), as 99.39 Million Chinese Yuan, occurs at the 9th simulation time node (year of 2017). However,
Yuan, and the corresponding proportion of the leachate evaporation is its corresponding proportion of the LFG purchase is decreased by 10%.
17%. The annual revenue of the Option 2 is decreased to 92.28 Million In contrast to the Option 1 and Option 3, it is clear that the annual
Chinese Yuan, which occurs at the 6th time node (year of 2014). revenue of the Option 2 (line 3) decreases dramatically, although there
However, the proportion of the leachate evaporation has been raised as is a slight increase in the initial period. With its continuous decreasing,
52%. The annual revenue corresponding to the Option 3 (line 4) is it is entirely below the benchmark revenue. The above phenomenon can
superior to that of the other two Sub-scenarios. Its maximum revenue be explained by that the waste calorific value is improved by the
occurs at the 16th time node (year of 2024), as 104.43 Million Chinese increase of purchased proportion of LFG, which may further enlarge the
Yuan. However, the proportion of the leachate evaporation has been capacity of leachate evaporation. However, excessive purchase of LFG
decreased as 27%. The reason for the above simulation results might be may result in financial burden regarding commercial success of the
that the cost of waste leachate treatment in a conventional way, i.e., incineration plant. In such case, the simulation result is indicated as
transferred to a municipal sewage treatment plant for its advanced failed to implement in actual situation, due to a cost-benefit considera-
treatment, could be saved with the increase of evaporation efficiency. tion.
However, if excessive leachate is treated by evaporation, the waste
calorific value in incinerator may decrease dramatically, which gives
5.4. Discussion
rise to a loss of power generation thus to reduce the revenue of the
incineration plant.
With regard to the Scenario 1, i.e., the purchased proportion of LFG
α is set as a fixed value, e.g., α = 0.02, the annual revenue of the third
5.3. Simulation results of the scenario 2 option is apparently the largest among the three options. Furthermore,
the proportion of the leachate evaporation β corresponding to the
In contrast to the Scenario 1, the proportion of leachate evaporation Option 3 is 10% higher than that of the Option 1. In case the annual

Fig. 6. Simulation result of the benchmark revenue.

80
R. Zhao et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84

Fig. 7. Simulation result of the Scenario 1 by taking α = 0.02 as an example.

Fig. 8. Simulation result of Scenario 2 by taking β = 0.02 as an example.

revenue of the incineration plant of the Option 3 reaches the maximum
as 110.92 million Yuan, the greatest amount of the leachate evapora-
tion is 41%. By taking both economic revenue and leachate treatment
into account, it is implied that the Option 3 is optimal for further
managerial implementation. When input α as 0.04, 0.06, 0.08… etc.,
into the SD model, the similar results can be obtained, which still
indicates the Option 3 is superior to the other two options.
By taking β = 0.02 as an example in the Scenario 2, the annual
revenue of the Option 2 is the lowest among the three options.
Especially, it is even inferior to the benchmark revenue at the 13th
time node, which indicates the Option 2 is not economically feasible for
practical operation. Compared with the Option 3 and the Option 1, the
former revenue is higher than that of the latter, which can be deemed as
the optimal scenario for further managerial implementation. When
input β as 0.04, 0.06, 0.08… etc., into the SD model, the similar
simulation results can be obtained. In case β = 0.12, the maximum
revenue for the incineration plant is received as 105.71 million Yuan in
the Option 3, with its optimal purchase ratio of LFG as 10%.

81
R. Zhao et al.
Fig. 9. Comparison of annual revenue between the two optimal options.
Based on the above analysis, the Option 3 in both the Scenario 1 and
the Scenario 2 is identified as the optimal alternatives for possible
implementation. Fig. 9 further demonstrates the variation of the annual
revenue related to the two optimal options, which reflects that the
optimal option of the Scenario 1 has a better economic performance
than that of the Scenario 2.
As far as the treatment of leachate is concerned, the optimal option
of the Scenario 1 is obviously superior to that of the Scenario 2,
indicated by a larger proportion of the leachate evaporation, i.e. 4 times
bigger of the amount of evaporation, as shown in Fig. 10.
While giving both considerations to the economic and environ-
mental performances, Scenario 1 is deemed as the optimal operation
scenario for further implementation, in which the incineration plant is
capable of purchasing 7% of the purified LFG, and evaporating 41% of
the in-site leachate. Ultimately, the annual revenue is expected to be
more than 110 million Yuan, 35% above the independent operation.
Although the simulation results show that the integrated mode for
leachate thermal treatment has a great potential for future implementa-
tion due to a substantial economic performance, there are still a number
of uncertainties in evaluating the sustainable treatment system. With
regard to the model, the uncertainty may result from any of the
quantitative expressions. For instance, the LFG in the model is
hypothesized as a stabilized alternative energy source for the combus-
tion substitute of the incineration plant. The actual LFG generation is a
complex progress, which may be influenced by considerable factors,
e.g. waste characteristics (density, biodegradation, moisture etc.),
content of micro-organisms, conditions of either aerobic or anaerobic,
the degree of initial compaction etc (Yang et al., 2013; Burnley et al.,
Fig. 10. Comparison of LFG Purchase and Leachate evaporation.
82
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 124 (2017) 74–84
2015; Hettiaratchi et al., 2015). However, the empirical models for
prediction of LFG production, e.g., the Marticorena Dynamics Model
used in this study, Mexico LFG model, IPCC prediction model, multi-
phase prediction model etc., may be not sufficient enough to discrimi-
nate whether the landfill is at the stage of intensive gas production or
not, thus may give rise to uncertainties of prediction (Cakir et al.,
2016). The second issue is that, evaporation itself, as a single process,
may not be effective to treat different types of leachate. For instance,
the relationship between leachate dosage and evaporation efficiency
may bring uncertainties in simulation results. There needs a careful
design regarding leachate evaporation, particularly in its associated
volatile components control, and reduction of high inorganic salt
concretion on the incinerator furnace wall (Zhao et al., 2012). It is
thus recommended to combine the evaporation with other alternative
treatment facilities. Specifically, leachate is generally divided into the
young and mature leachate, according to age of landfill (Nair et al.,
2014). The former may have higher BOD and COD contents than that
the latter has, by which the biological process coupled with evaporation
is expected to have a good performance on the leachate treatment
(Martin-Utrillas et al., 2015). With regard to the mature leachate, due
to its low biodegradability, refractory organics consisting of dissolved
organic matter (DOM), evaporation integrated with reverse osmosis
(RO), ultrafiltration etc., is recommended as the solution to reduce its
organic and ammonia level (Wang et al., 2016b). From the perspective
of data uncertainty, it may come from its acquisition and reliability,
e.g., there is a lack of statistic data related to the economic performance
of the investigated incineration plant, since it is newly built, thus may
not validate the model robustly.
6. Conclusion
This study offers a conceptual prototype by using LFG as an
alternative energy to treat the waste leachate. A system dynamics
approach is applied to modelling the economic performance on a
regional incineration plant. Two scenarios are established to demon-
strate the application of the proposed SD model, set by the change of
the ratio of leachate evaporation and LFG utilization, to identify the
optimal scenario with the best economic performance for future
managerial implementation. The result shows that the Scenario 1 has
a better economic performance than the Scenario 2, in which its
revenue is 35% higher than the benchmark, as well as maximum 41%
of the in-site leachate could be treated by the thermal evaporation. It is
expected that the study may provide insight into the development of an
alternative treatment mode of waste leachate and reduction of the
associated greenhouse gases emissions, thus to improve sustainable
R. Zhao et al.
waste management.
However, there are some limitations in the proposed model. First, in
order to simplify the construction of the model, the environmental
impact related to the leachate evaporation has yet to be considered,
e.g., the crystallization issue related to the furnace, dioxin production
etc. Secondly, the economic analysis presented in this study is limited in
scope owing to the assumptions made concerning the claimed economic
benefits of combining existing technologies. Further study will center
on improvement of the model, and on a more detailed consideration of
both technical and economic feasibility.
Acknowledgement
This study is sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 41571520), The Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (No. A0920502051408), The State-province Joint
Engineering Laboratory of Spatial Information Technology for High-
Speed Railway Safety (No. IRT13092).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the
online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.04.010.
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