A new book from the Royal Society of Chemistry contains a chapter on Respirometry of Organic Solid Wastes: Methods and relevance to understanding the composting process and end-product stability, authored by EBNet member Tom Aspray of Solid Sense Ltd.
EBNet has done relatively little work to date on composting technologies, apart from one webinar with CIWM. But respirometry is a powerful technique for evaluating the biological stability of post-treatment samples, and also has wider potential applications, such as providing insights on the potential biodegradability of organic wastes or for the assessment and optimisation of soil bioremediation..
Dr Yue Zhang, co-Lead of EBNet’s AF WG, said “Stability is already an increasingly hot topic for all those dealing with residues from bioprocessing of organic wastes, whether the processes are aerobic or anaerobic. There is potential to develop a test package including both respirometry and biogas production to allow us to test the degradability of organic wastes and the stability of the treatment residues under a variety of conditions and purposes. The AF and AD WGs warmly welcome a broader review and discussion of this subject”.