Predicting the Stability of Organic Matter Originating from Different Waste Treatment Procedures

Yan Wang; Lekun Tan; Patricia Garnier; Sabine Houot; Julie Jimenez; Dominique Patureau; Yang Zeng

doi:10.3390/ijerph20032151

Predicting the Stability of Organic Matter Originating from Different Waste Treatment Procedures

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 25;20(3):2151. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20032151.

Authors

Yan Wang¹, Lekun Tan^{1

2}, Patricia Garnier³, Sabine Houot³, Julie Jimenez⁴, Dominique Patureau⁴, Yang Zeng¹

Affiliations

¹ Sino-French Research Institute for Ecology and Environment (ISFREE), School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shandong University, 72 Bing Hai Avenue, Qingdao 266237, China.
² Qingdao ProBio Biotech Co., Ltd., Block B, Building 3, Haichuang Center, Blue Silicon Valley, Qingdao 266200, China.
³ AgroParisTech, INRAE, Université Paris Saclay, UMR ECOSYS, F-78850 Thiverval Grignon, France.
⁴ French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment, University of Montpellier, LBE, INRAE, 102 Avenue des Etangs, F-11100 Narbonne, France.

Abstract

Recycling organic wastes into farmland faces a double challenge: increasing the carbon storage of soil while mitigating CO₂ emission from soil. Predicting the stability of organic matter (OM) in wastes and treatment products can be helpful in dealing with this contradiction. This work proposed a modeling approach integrating an OM characterization protocol into partial least squares (PLS) regression. A total of 31 organic wastes, and their products issued from anaerobic digestion, composting, and digestion-composting treatment were characterized using sequential extraction and three-dimension (3D) fluorescence spectroscopy. The apportionment of carbon in different fractions and fluorescence spectra revealed that the OM became less accessible and biodegradable after treatments, especially the composting. This was proven by the decrease in CO₂ emission from soil incubation. The PLS model successfully predicted the stability of solid digestate, compost, and compost of solid digestate in the soil by using only the characterized variables of non-treated wastes. The results suggested that it would be possible to predict the stability of OM from organic wastes after different treatment procedures. It is helpful to choose the most suitable and economic treatment procedure to stabilize labile organic carbon in wastes and hence minimize CO₂ emission after the application of treatment products to the soil.

Keywords: anaerobic digestion; composting; organic matter; soil; soil application; stability.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Carbon
Carbon Dioxide*
Composting*
Soil / chemistry
Solid Waste

Substances

Carbon Dioxide
Soil
Carbon
Solid Waste

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Project under the Shandong Province Key R&D Program (No. 2021CXGC010803), the National Natural Science Foundation (NSFC) of China (No. 21777085, 21607094), and the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) in the project: “Evaluation intégrée des phases de Traitement et de recYclage agricole des matières organiques pour des systèmes d’élevage moteurs dans l’atténuation du changement Climatique” with the program REACCTIF.