Sewage sludge is an unavoidable by-product of wastewater treatment processes; its disposal is generally costly or easy to contaminate the environment. Being rich in micro-and macronutrients, composting of sewage sludge is one of the important disposal alternatives. Nutrients balance plays a vital role in the composting process which is expressed as, carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the feasibility of C/N ratios (15, 20, 25, and 30) with control on the agitated pile composting of sewage sludge during 30 days. It was observed that C/N 30 produced the best compost, showed highest temperature profile, higher loss in EC phosphorus, implying the total amount of biodegradable organic material is stabilized; and a Solvita® maturity index of 8 indicated that the compost was stable and ready for usage as a soil conditioner. On analyzing the results by ANOVA, the physico-chemical, biological and stability parameters varied significantly during the 30 days composting process. Therefore, it can be suggested that the pile composting of sewage sludge at C/N 30 can produce more stable compost after 30 days, while, C/N 15, 20, 25 and control poses least stable.
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Author Name: Ashish Kumar Nayak and Ajay S. Kalamdhad
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Keywords: sewage sludge, C/N ratio, cattle manure, pile composting, stability, solvita® maturity index.
ISSN:
EISSN: 2249 –1929
EOI/DOI: NIL
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