Abstract
Through this study, the humus produced in the breeding place of Universidad Autonoma de Occidente was thermally characterized. The humus was submitted to a heating program controlled by the Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) technique to characterize the type of transition, Thermogravimetry (TGA) to study the equilibrium of phasesand Mass Spectrometry (MS) coupled to TGA to identify detached elements in a temperature range. The temperature range used in this study was 30℃ ℃. The energy required for the water desorption in the humus has been found in this study. The humus showed a quick desorption between 30℃ ≤ TDesorption ≤ 110℃ at a heating rate of 10℃/min and presented decomposition around 250℃. Moreover, the kinetics of the desorption of the humus was studied to obtain the activation energy three TGA measures for three different heating rates. The average activation energy was about 26 kJ/Mol. This result was carried out to obtain an estimation of the desorption time of water in the range from room temperature to the decomposition temperature around 350℃.
Highlights
The red Californian worm compost is made from the skin of Solanum tuberosum, cattle excrements, plant sludge from waste water treatment WWTP at Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (UAO) and leaves that are cut to maintain symmetry in the garden
The TGA curve shows two degradations: the first from room temperature to 100 ̊C atributed to water desorption or moisture loss, shows a weight loss of about 52.8%; the second degradation is observed at temperatures between 200 ̊C and 400 ̊C, attributed to proceses of decomposition of organic material showing a weight loss in the humus of about 10.7%
For the first time we study the behavior of dehydration and decomposition of humus by californian earthworms produced through thermal analysis techniques such as thermogravimetric, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Mass Spectrometry
Summary
The red Californian worm compost is made from the skin of Solanum tuberosum (potato), cattle excrements (cow dung), plant sludge from waste water treatment WWTP at Universidad Autónoma de Occidente (UAO) and leaves that are cut to maintain symmetry in the garden These four components are supplied to the Californian worms. The Thermogravimetry (TGA) technique quantifies the weight losses which are associated with the dehydration or decomposition of the material or compound being analyzed This technique is supplemented with the Mass Spectrometry which identifies the gases that are released as they are subjected to different temperatures. This work seeks to establish alterations in the physical properties of the humus due to variations in temperature through the study of the heating capacity, the activation energy and the estimated lifetime It seeks to analyze phenomena such as dehydration and evaporation of the components of humus
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