In this activity, we will conduct methane-amended enrichment culture experiments to quantify methane oxidation capacity for landfill cover soils using soil samples of interest identified under Activity 4. We will assess active cultures under conditions that mimic cover soil chemistries of other landfills, and apply seasonal simulations to assess the resilience of methane oxidation activity under differing temperatures representative of Canadian climate extremes. We will test the best performing cultures in 10 L reactors for stability to use as methane oxidation augmentation tools at landfills across Canada and internationally.
We anticipate that we will have up to five enrichment cultures with strong methanotrophic capacity and resilience to changing climate and soil conditions for use in landfills. Further, we aim to have at least two demonstrated enrichment cultures scaled up to industry-relevant volumes without any loss of activity.