 Microbial conversion of food wastes for biofertilizer production with thermophilic lipolytic microbesShu-Hsien Tsai, Ching-Piao Liu and Shang-Shyng Yang Renewable Energy, 2007, vol. 32, issue 6, 904-915 Abstract: Food waste is approximately one quarter of the total garbage in Taiwan. To investigate the feasibility of microbial conversion of food waste to multiple functional biofertilizer, food waste was mixed with bulking materials, inoculated with thermophilic and lipolytic microbes and incubated at 50°C in a mechanical composter. Microbial inoculation enhanced the degradation of food wastes, increased the total nitrogen and the germination rate of alfalfa seed, shortened the maturity period and improved the quality of biofertilizer. In food waste inoculated with thermophilic and lipolytic Brevibacillus borstelensis SH168 for 28 days, total nitrogen increased from 2.01% to 2.10%, ash increased from 24.94% to 29.21%, crude fat decreased from 4.88% to 1.34% and the C/N ratio decreased from 18.02 to 17.65. Each gram of final product had a higher population of thermophilic microbes than mesophilic microbes. Microbial conversion of food waste to biofertilizer is a feasible and potential technology in the future to maintain the natural resources and to reduce the impact on environmental quality. Keywords: Biofertilizer; Food wastes; Maturity; Thermophilic and lipolytic microbes (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:32:y:2007:i:6:p:904-915 DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2006.04.019 Access Statistics for this article Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier |
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