Hirakazu Seki

COMPOSTING REACTION RATE AND SIMULTANEOUS HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER UNDER THE CONDITION OF FORCED AERATION

From a view point of searching for the utilization of heat produced in composting process of a mixture of livestock wastes and farmyard wastes, a few experiments of composting the above mixture were performed under the condition of forced aeration as an example of the practical methods of increasing heat production. Several considerations were done about features of the composting process based on the experimental results of temperature, oxygen comsumption rate and carbon-dioxide production rate in a compost bed. Heat production rates obtained in the above experiments were six through ten times as much as a value obtained under a nonaerating condition. According to a mass balance of carbon, composting reaction rate was roughly estimated. In addition, a mathematical model of the simultaneous heat and mass transfer in a compost bed, which is accompanied with the composting reaction, was investigated.