IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v20y2023i4p3002-d1062474.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparison and Evaluation of GHG Emissions during Simulated Thermophilic Composting of Different Municipal and Agricultural Feedstocks

Author

Listed:
  • Jianfei Zeng

    (Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
    Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, CFAES Wooster, The Ohio State University, Wooster, OH 44691, USA
    Engineering Laboratory for AgroBiomass Recycling & Valorizing, College of Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Frederick C. Michel

    (Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, CFAES Wooster, The Ohio State University, Wooster, OH 44691, USA)

  • Guangqun Huang

    (Engineering Laboratory for AgroBiomass Recycling & Valorizing, College of Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China)

Abstract

Composting is widely used to recycle a variety of different organic wastes. In this study, dairy manure, chicken litter, biosolids, yard trimmings and food waste were selected as representative municipal and agricultural feedstocks and composted in simulated thermophilic composting reactors to compare and evaluate the GHG emissions. The results showed that the highest cumulative emissions of CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O were observed during yard trimmings composting (659.14 g CO 2 kg −1 DM), food waste composting (3308.85 mg CH 4 kg −1 DM) and chicken litter composting (1203.92 mg N 2 O kg −1 DM), respectively. The majority of the carbon was lost in the form of CO 2 . The highest carbon loss by CO 2 and CH 4 emissions and the highest nitrogen loss by N 2 O emission occurred in dairy manure (41.41%), food waste (0.55%) and chicken litter composting (3.13%), respectively. The total GHG emission equivalent was highest during food waste composting (365.28 kg CO 2 -eq ton −1 DM) which generated the highest CH 4 emission and second highest N 2 O emissions, followed by chicken litter composting (341.27 kg CO 2 -eq ton −1 DM), which had the highest N 2 O emissions. The results indicated that accounting for GHG emissions from composting processes when it is being considered as a sustainable waste management practice was of great importance.

Suggested Citation

  • Jianfei Zeng & Frederick C. Michel & Guangqun Huang, 2023. "Comparison and Evaluation of GHG Emissions during Simulated Thermophilic Composting of Different Municipal and Agricultural Feedstocks," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-12, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:4:p:3002-:d:1062474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/3002/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/3002/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elena Elisabeta Manea & Costel Bumbac & Laurentiu Razvan Dinu & Marius Bumbac & Cristina Mihaela Nicolescu, 2024. "Composting as a Sustainable Solution for Organic Solid Waste Management: Current Practices and Potential Improvements," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-25, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:4:p:3002-:d:1062474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.