A Study on the Composting Process of Food Waste by Seeding the Isolated Effective Microorganism

음식폐기물 퇴비화에서 유효 미생물 분리 및 첨가에 관한 연구

Although microorganisms play an important role in composting process, researches on the effective microorganism (EM) in composting process are rarely reported. In this study, three stages of work performed 1) investigation of composting facility 2) sample collection and isolation of the EM 3) lab-scale composting by seeding the isolated EM. For this, purpose, physical, chemical, and biological characteristics, such as temperature, moisture content, organic matter, pH population of microorganism, etc., were investigated during the process and the results were compared with those of a control(non-seeded). In the composting facility, the most active degradation of food waste was suppsed to occur in 10-11th day of composting by observing the temperature and CO2 emission. The population of bacterial and fungi was highest in thermophilic stage. Meanwhile that of actinomycetes and yeast was relatively uniform during the process. In the lab-scale test, the thermophilic stage was maintained longer(more than 9 days in 17 days of experiment) in the seeded which was favored for the high reduction of organic matter and moisture. Reduction rates of lipids and salinity were also increased in the seeded. It confirmed these results that the population of microorganisms in the seeded was observed higher in several orders than the control. However, pH of the seeded was maintained as low as about 4.5 throughout the experiment except the final period of the process. Meanwhile, pH of the control rose in the early stage of the experiment. This was probably due that the seeded microorganisms collected from the composting facility was adapted to the low pH environment.