Strategy to Strengthen Rural Domestic Waste Composting at Low Temperature: Choice of Ventilation Condition

Abstract

In order to investigate the effects of the ventilation conditions on the rural domestic waste composting efficiency at low ambient temperature, three composting groups, which were carried out in self-designed high-efficiency, low-energy-consuming aerobic composting reactor, were compared: hot-blast air group (H), natural air group (N), and stuffiness group (S). The operating parameters of the two ventilation groups include a ventilation rate and frequency of 0.2 m3/min m3 and 20 min/2 h, respectively. In this study, the rates of temperature rose in the group H, N, S were 34.8, 6.4, 11.3 °C/day, respectively, and only the group H reached a maximum temperature of over 50 °C. Moreover, the biochemical analysis, microbial community analysis and the composting product assessment indicated that the reaction degree and treatment effect of the group H were much better than the other two groups. Results showed that the positive effect of H on the efficiency of the composting process was achieved by affecting ventilation conditions. Accordingly, we provided a method to solve the problem regarding temperature limitations of the conventional composting process in cold area.