Self-heating in compost piles due to biological effects

Nelson, Mark; Marchant, Timothy R.; Wake, G. C.; Balakrishnan, E.; Chen, Xiao

doi:10.1016/j.ces.2007.05.018

Cited by 31 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The abundance of readily available and easily digestible substrate (e.g., sugars, starches, simple protein compounds) might have ensured that the microorganisms were active. Relatively, low temperature in the compost facilitated the growth and respiration of micro-organisms such as aerobic mouldfungi and bacteria whereas high temperature was due to oxidation of cellulosic materials [15] . Lignin was degraded slowly in the mesophilic stage perhaps due to increase in fungal activity [14] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Characteristics of Compost and Humic Acid from Sago Waste (Metroxylon sagu)

Petrus¹,

Ahmed²,

Muhamad³

et al. 2009

American J. of Applied Sciences

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Problem statement: Agriculture waste such as Sago Waste (SW) has a potential to cause pollution either on land or in water. In order to reduce this problem, a study was conducted to investigate the effect of three different treatments on the chemical characteristics of compost and humic acid from SW. Approach: The study had three treatments which were: T1: SW (80%) + chicken feed (5%) + chicken dung slurry (5%) + molasses (5%) + urea (5%), T2: SW (80%) + chicken feed (10%) + chicken dung slurry (5%) + molasses (5%) and T3: SW (80%) + chicken feed (10%) + chicken dung slurry (5%) + urea (5%). Composting was done for 60 days in a white polystyrene box with a size of 61.5×49×33.5 cm. The composts were analyzed for pH, total nitrogen, organic carbon, organic matter, ash, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC), phosphorus and HA using standard procedures. Results: All treatments did not reach thermophilic phase. Compost of T2 had high quality (pH, total nitrogen, organic carbon, organic matter, ash, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC), phosphorus and HA) compared to T1 and T3. The yield of HA of T2 was also significantly higher compared to those of T1 and T3. The compost characteristics of T1 and T3 were similar. The chemical characteristics of HA the 3 treatments were within the standard range reported by other researchers. Conclusion: T2 is more efficient in producing mature and good quality compost in 60 days compared to T1 and T3.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Characteristics of Compost and Humic Acid from Sago Waste (Metroxylon sagu)

Petrus¹,

Ahmed²,

Muhamad³

et al. 2009

American J. of Applied Sciences

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“…Function f T is often modelled with a ‘ Q 10 ’ form (Kirschbaum, 1995): where Q 10 is a dimensionless soil‐specific temperature coefficient, which represents the respiration rate increase for a temperature increase of 10°C. This exponential dependence is clearly a simplification as soil respiration is known to reduce at very high temperatures (Nelson et al , 2007). However, this does not affect the conclusions with regard to the stability of the soil system at normal temperatures, which depends purely on the local derivative of the specific respiration rate with respect to soil temperature, as shown below.…”

Section: A Simple Soil Carbon–temperature Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil carbon and climate change: from the Jenkinson effect to the compost‐bomb instability

Luke

Cox

2010

European J Soil Science

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First generation climate-carbon cycle models suggest that climate change will suppress carbon accumulation in soils, and could even lead to a net loss of global soil carbon over the next century. These model results are qualitatively consistent with soil carbon projections published by Jenkinson almost two decades ago. More recently there has been a suggestion that the release of heat associated with soil decomposition, which is neglected in the vast majority of large-scale models, may be critically important under certain circumstances. Models with and without the extra self-heating from microbial respiration have been shown to yield significantly different results. The present paper presents a mathematical analysis of a tipping point or runaway feedback that can arise when the heat from microbial respiration is generated more rapidly than it can escape from the soil to the atmosphere. This 'compost-bomb instability' is most likely to occur in drying organic soils with high porosity covered by an insulating lichen or moss layer. However, the instability is also found to be strongly dependent on the rate of global warming. This paper derives the conditions required to trigger the compost-bomb instability, and discusses the relevance of these to the concept of dangerous rates of climate change. On the basis of simple numerical experiments, rates of long-term warming equivalent to 10 • C per century could be sufficient to trigger compost-bomb instability in drying organic soils.

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“…The theory developed by Semenov was used by Nelson et al [40] to describe the heat increase at low temperatures inside a pile as a result of exothermic biological activity, as well as the oxidation of cellulose and cellulose-like materials as fuels after the initial ignition. The Galerkin method has been used to obtain a semi-analytical solution to capture temperature increments in 1D and 2D compost piles due to micro-organisms undergoing exothermic reactions, which shows excellent agreements with a finite-difference solution [41].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unsteady 2D coupled heat and mass transfer in porous media with biological and chemical heat generations

Moraga

Corvalán

Escudey

et al. 2009

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

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Self-heating in compost piles due to biological effects

Cited by 31 publications

References 19 publications

Chemical Characteristics of Compost and Humic Acid from Sago Waste (Metroxylon sagu)

Chemical Characteristics of Compost and Humic Acid from Sago Waste (Metroxylon sagu)

Soil carbon and climate change: from the Jenkinson effect to the compost‐bomb instability

Unsteady 2D coupled heat and mass transfer in porous media with biological and chemical heat generations

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