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Seed germination percentage (SGP) (a), root length (RL) (b), and germination index (GI) (c) of the final composts as affected by nine treatments (T1–T9). Values are means ± SD (n = 3). Treatments T1–T9 are described in Table 1
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Composting is an attractive way to recycle organic wastes because the product (compost) can be used as an organic fertilizer or a culture substrate. This study assessed coal fly ash (CFA; at 0, 15, and 35%) and/or vinegar residue (VR; at 0, 35, and 55%) as additives in the green waste (GW) composting process. Compost maturity was assessed based on...
Citations
... A single bacterial flora, fungal flora, or actinomycete flora, no matter how optimised their living environment and how vigorous their metabolic activities, are less effective in improving the efficiency of aerobic composting compared to the synergy of multiple floras [16]. Under pure culture conditions, Chaetomium thermophilum could decompose 40% of the total weight of wheat straw within three weeks at 45 ℃, close to the degradation rate of the total microbial population in the compost pile in this study. ...
There have been various environmental issues in the treatment and resource utilisation of solid waste of livestock and poultry industry in Gansu Province. Thus, in this study, manure of cattle, pig, and chicken from farms near the Lanzhou University of Technology in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province were selected as raw materials for composting using 10 % corn stalk as a leavening agent for aerobic static composting. This study focused on bacterial, fungal, and actinomycetes community succession during livestock manure composting and the underlying microbial degradation mechanism. The results demonstrated that during livestock manure composting, the number of the above-mentioned types of microbes was all positively correlated with the temperature of the compost piles. In the initial stage of composting, the number of microbes increased as the temperature increased, and reached the peaks at the highest temperature, after which, their numbers decreased with the decrease in temperature. At the end of composting, in the cattle, pig, and chicken manure compost piles, the number of bacteria were respectively (3.1 ±1.0) · 10 ⁹ CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w., (4.4 ±1.0) · 10 ⁹ CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w. and (6.7 ±1.8) · 10 ⁹ CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w., respectively, those of fungi were (8.6 ±1.2) · 10 ⁴ CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w., (7.2 ±1.6) · 10 ⁴ CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w. and (8.0 ±2.8) · 10 ⁴ CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w., respectively, while those of actinomycetes were (8.8 ±2.2) · 106 CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w., (9.5 ±2.1) · 106 CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w. and (6.32 ±0.98) · 106 CFU·g ⁻¹ d.w., respectively.
... It can be concluded that there are three main ways to deal with leaching risks associated with CFA. Firstly, a lot of researches have been conducted on a mixture of CFA with various acidic organic agricultural wastes, such as vinegar residue, fruit peel, cow dung, sewage sludge, compost, and vermicompost, to neutralize the alkalinity of CFA and inhibit the leaching of heavy metals (Jiang et al. 1999;Su and Wong 2002;Wong 1995;Zhang and Sun 2019). There are other advantages for co-utilization of CFA with these organic byproducts such as lowering mobility and bioavailability of heavy metals in soil, buffering the pH of soil, enhancing organic matters in soil, enhancing uptake of nutrient elements, and stimulating microbial activity indirectly (Yao et al. 2015;Yin et al. 2016). ...
The rapid economic development in China places a large demand for energy, and as a result, thermal power plants in China are producing an enormous amount of coal fly ash (CFA) which causes severe environmental pollution. This paper briefly describes the current production and utilization status of CFA in China and identifies the challenges confronting sustainable CFA utilization as the Chinese economy is being transformed. These issues include a regional imbalance in supply and demand, reducing demand in the real estate industry as well as stricter laws for environmental protection. Viable directions for future CFA utilization are proposed, for example, production of CFA-based ceramic tiles, recovery of elemental resources, agricultural melioration, treatment of wastewater and flue gas, and production of high-volume CFA concretes. This paper has some guiding significance for sustainable and cleaner utilization of CFA in China and even worldwide.
Graphical abstract
Green waste (GW) represents 11% of municipal solid waste. Managing this waste is challenging due to its physicochemical variability, low density, and presence of hard-to-degrade lignocellulosic compounds. Composting is an alternative for GW transformation and valorization. However, due to the substrate characteristics, processing times are long, and the end product typically does not meet quality standards. Incorporating additives and co-substrates are operational strategies that contribute to overcoming these challenges. An essential step is the determination of a mixture's composition that ensures synergistic effects on the process and end-product quality. This research assessed the effect of adding biochar (Bch) in the co-composting of GW and food waste (FW). A previously studied co-composting mixture (M) of GW, raw and processed FW, sawdust (Sd), and phosphoric rock (Pr) with four treatments by duplicate were assessed at the pilot scale: T 1 : 100% GW, T 2 : M 1 , T 3 : M 2 + 2% Bch, y T 4 : M 3 + 5% Bch. The results show that Bch treatments maintained the range of thermophilic temperatures for longer than the other two treatments (between four and five additional days), showing greater biological activity and better end-product hygienization. Likewise, in the Bch treatments, the hemicellulose and cellulose degradation improved compared to treatments without Bch by 33.9% and 23.3%, respectively, and nitrogen losses were reduced by up to 70%. Regarding the end product, adding a 2% dose of Bch allowed the highest fertility index compared to the other three treatments, showing its potential for agricultural use. This work demonstrates that adding biochar to FW and GW co-composting improves organic matter degradation rates, lignocellulosic degradation, and end-product quality.
Globally, huge amounts of crop residues are generated that are either fed to animals or are used for other purposes. Recycling crop residues opens new options for converting wastes into valuable products that can be used in farms for meeting crop nutrient requirements, maintaining soil health, crop productivity, and improving soil quality. Composting offers a proven avenue for best utilization of crop residues. Additives are materials that consist of nutrients, readily available forms of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, or other elements, enzymes, and microbial formulations that enhance microbial activity when in contact with the waste material. These materials, apart from modifying physical, chemical, and microbial properties, also help in improving the final quality of the compost. In this review, we summarize the importance of the additives during composting process. The first part of the review describes the composting process in general. Next part explains how the use of organic, inorganic, and biological additives results in various modifications in composting process by changing aeration, porosity, enhancing thermophilic phase, maturity, and nutritive value of compost. The last part explains how decomposed and nutritionally rich composts result in improvement of plant growth, development and modification in soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. Although the use of additives have mixed outputs, their use in composting provides new insights into modification of the composting environment.
To improve the quality of lignocellulose compost, the effect of a potential new-generation additive—amino acid-derived ionic liquid—on a compost pile comprising 50% rice straw was studied preliminarily. The addition of 1% 1-carboxymethanaminium chloride (glycine hydrochloride [Gly][Cl]) caused observably positive changes in the physical, chemical, and microbiological properties of the compost. After 30 days of composting, the humus and total nitrogen concentrations were 130.85 and 28.8 g/kg, showing an increase of 93.28% and 67.44%, respectively, compared with the concentrations in the beginning of composting; these concentrations were 76.97% and 41.69%, respectively, for the control group (without [Gly][Cl]). Thus, amino acid-derived ionic liquids can be promising additives for enhancing the quality of composts for which straw is used as the primary component.
Humanity is struggling against a major problem for a proper management of generated municipal solid waste. The collected waste causes natural issues like uncontrollable emission of greenhouse gases. Even though, escalation of waste results in minimizing the areas accessible for disposing the waste. Creating awareness in the society to use organic products like biofuels, biofertilizers and biogas is a need of an hour. Biochemical processes such as composting, vermicomposting, anaerobic digestion, and landfilling play important role in valorizing biomass and solid waste for production of biofuels, biosurfactants and biopolymer. This paper covers the details of biomass and solid waste characteristics and its composition. It is also focused to provide updated information about reutilization of biomass for value creation. Technologies and products obtained through bio-routes are discussed in current review paper together with the integrated system of solid waste management. It also covers challenges, innovations and perspectives in this field.
A large amount of vinegar residue (VR) is generated every year in China, causing serious environmental pollutions. Meanwhile, as a kind of persistent organic pollutants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) ubiquitously exist in environments. With a goal of reusing VR and reducing PAHs pollutions, we herein isolated one B. subtilis strain, ZL09-26, which can degrade phenanthrene and produce biosurfactants. Subsequently, raw VR was dried under different temperatures (50 °C, 80 °C, 100 °C and 120 °C) or pyrolyzed under 350 °C and 700 °C, respectively. After being characterized by various approaches, the treated VR were mixed with ZL09-26 as carriers to degrade phenanthrene. We found that VR dried at 50 °C (VR50) was the best in promoting the growth of ZL09-26 and the degradation of phenanthrene. This result may be attributed to the residual nutrients, suitable porosity and small surface charge of VR50. Our results demonstrate the potential of VR in the biodegradation of phenanthrene, which may be meaningful for developing new VR-based approaches to remove PAHs in aqueous environments.
