PRODUCTION OF HIGH EFFICIENT COMPOST FROM ALGAE AND ORGANIC FRACTION SOLID WASTE MIXTURE

Abstract

The present research was designed to study the properties of compost produced from the mixture of algae biomass and the organic fraction municipal solid waste. A lab scale anaerobic digesters was used to find the best conditions effected on degradation of organic solid waste and algae. The best condition were found to be 1:2, 7.5, 8% and 32oC for mixing ration of algae/solid waste, pH, total solid T.S and temperature respectively. The best conditions were used in pilot scale. In pilot scale digester, electric conductivity (EC), moisture contents (MC), nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium nutrients (NPK) and heavy metals (Pb2+, Zn2+, Cu2+, Ni2+ and Cd2+) of the resulted compost were measured and all the values under permissible levels of the USA and British compost quality standards for composts. The calculated value of germination index (GI) is 83.88% which proved that the compost obtained in this study is satisfactory for agricultural use.