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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The influence of the proportion of C- and N-rich raw materials (initial C/N ratio) and bulking agent on the
chemical functional groups composition, humic-like substances (HS-like) content and physicochemical
properties of composts was assessed. To achieve these goals, seven initial mixtures (BA1–6 and C1) of
dog food (N-rich raw material) were composted with wheat flour (C-rich raw material). Composts were
analyzed in terms of chemical functional groups, physicochemical, maturity and stability parameters.
The C-rich raw material favored the formation of oxidized organic matter (OM) during the composting
process, as suggested by the variation of the ratios of the peaks intensity of FT-IR spectra, corresponding
to a decrease of the polysaccharides and an increase of aromatic and carboxyl-containing compounds.
However, although with high proportion of C-rich raw material, mixtures with low initial C/N seems
to have favored the accumulation of partially oxidized OM, which may have contributed to high electrical
conductivity values in the final composts. Therefore, although favoring the partial transformation of OM
into stabilized HS-like, initial mixtures with high proportion of C-rich raw material but with low initial C/
N led to unstable composts.
On the other hand, as long as a high percentage of bulking agent was used to promote the structure of
biomass and consequently improve of the aeration conditions, low initial C/N was not a limiting factor of
OM oxidation into extractable stabilized humic-like acids.
Description
Keywords
Bulking agent Humic-like substances Initial C/N ratio Maturity Raw materials Stability
Citation
Silva et al., 2014
Publisher
Elsevier