EFFECT OF AMBIENT TEMPERATURE AND AIR FLOW RATE ON THE TEMPERATURE INSIDE THE COMPOST PILE

Khater, El-Sayed G.

doi:10.21608/mjae.2016.97790

EFFECT OF AMBIENT TEMPERATURE AND AIR FLOW RATE ON THE TEMPERATURE INSIDE THE COMPOST PILE

Document Type : Original Article

Author

El-Sayed G. Khater

Lecturer. of Agric. Eng., Fac. of Agric., Benha Univ., Egypt.

10.21608/mjae.2016.97790

Abstract

A heat balance was carried out to predict the compost pile temperature during the maturation stage. The components of the heat generation, solar radiation and heat lost by radiation, evaporation, convection and conduction were the main parts of heat balance at different ambient temperatures. Temperature was predicted at different ambient temperatures (15, 20, 25, 30 and 35°C) and different airflow rates (0.70, 1.10 and 1.50 mg air s^-1 kg^-1 dry matter). The results indicated that the pile temperature increases with increasing ambient temperature and it decreases with increasing airflow rates, where, as the ambient temperature increased from 15 to 35°C, the pile temperature increased from 33.40 to 43.18°C, and when the airflow rates increased from 0.7 to 1.5 mg air s^-1 kg^-1 dry matter, the pile temperature decreased from 38.28 to 36.05 °C. The pile temperature increased slightly and reached a maximum value at day 14. It indicates that the net energy gained to the pile increases with increasing ambient temperature, meanwhile, the heat lost decreases with increasing ambient temperature.

Keywords

References

Ahn, H. K., Richard, T. L., Choi, H. L., 2007. Mass and thermal balance during composting of a poultry manure – Wood shavings mixture at different aeration rates. Process Biochemistry 42 (2), 215–223.

Anderson, E.E., 1983. Fundamentals of Solar Energy Conversion. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Reading, Mass. 636 pp.

ASHRAE, 1998. Handbook Fundamentals. American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers, Atlanta, GA.

Avnimelech, Y., Eilat, R., Porat, Y., Kottas, P.A., 2004. Factors affecting the rate of windrow composting in field studies. Compos. Sci. Util. 12, 114–118.

Bach, P. D., Nakasaki, K., Shoda, M., Kubota, H., 1987. Thermal balance in composting operations. Journal of Fermentation Technology, 65 (2), 199–209.

Barrena, R., Canovas, C., Sánchez, A., 2006. Prediction of temperature and thermal inertia effect in the maturation stage and stockpiling of a large composting mass. Waste Management 26, 953 - 959.

Barrington, S., Choiniere, D., Trigui, M., Knight, W., 2003. Compost convective airflow under passive aeration. Bioresource Technol. 86: 259 - 266.

Bliss, R. W., Jr., 1961. Atmospheric Radiation near the Surface of the Ground. Solar Energy 5:103-120.

Das, K., Keener, H. M., 1997. Numerical model for the dynamic simulation of a large scale composting system. Transactions of the ASAE, 40 (4), 1179–1189.

de Guardia, A., Petiot, C., Benoist, J. C., Druilhe, C., 2012. Characterization and modelling of the heat transfers in a pilot-scale reactor during composting under forced aeration. Waste Management 32, 1091 - 1105.

Haug, R.T., 1993. The Practical Handbook of Compost Engineering. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL.

Holman, J.P., 1997. Heat Transfer, 8th edition. McGraw-Hill. 696 pp.

Keener, H. M., Marugg, C., Hansen, R. C., Hoitink, H. A. J., 1993. Optimizing the efficiency of the composting process. In Science and Engineering of Composting: Design Environmental, Microbiological, and Utilization Aspects, pp. 59 – 94. Worthington, Ohio: Renaissance Publications.

Kondratyev, Ya K., 1969. Radiation in the Atmosphere. Academic Press. Inc. 912 pp. 155.

Mason, I. G., 2006. Mathematical modelling of the composting process: a review. Waste Management 26 (1), 3–21.

Moraga, N. O., Corvalan, F., Escudey, M., Arias, A., Zambra, C. E., 2009. Unsteady 2D coupled heat and mass transfer in porous media with biological and chemical heat generations. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 52 (25–26), 5841–5848.

Petiot, C., de Guardia, A., 2004. Composting in a laboratory reactor: a review. Compos. Sci. Util. 12, 69–79.

Petric, I. Selimbašić, V., 2008. Development and validation of mathematical model for aerobic composting process. Chemical Enginering Journal, 139: 304 – 317.

Robinzon, R., Kimmel, E., Avnimelech, Y., 2000. Energy and mass balances of windrow composting system. Transactions of ASAE, 43 (5), 1523–1529.

Seki, H., 2002. A new deterministic model for forced aeration composting processes with batch operation. Trans ASAE, 45:1239 – 1250.

Sommer, S.G., McGinn, S.M., Hao, X., Larney, F.J., 2004. Techniques for measuring gas emissions from a composting stockpile of cattle manure. Atmos. Environ. 38, 4643–4652.

Tremier, A., de Guardia, A., Massiani, C., Paul, E., Martel, J.L., 2005. A respirometric method for characterising the organic composition and biodegradation kinetics and the temperature influence on the biodegradation kinetics, for a mixture of sludge and bulking agent to be cocomposted. Bioresource Technol. 96: 169 - 180.

Turner, C., Williams, A., White, R., Tillett, R., 2005. Inferring pathogen inactivation from the surface temperatures of compost heaps. Bioresource Technol. 96, 521–529.

Wan, N. K., Hwang, E. Y., 1997. Opeational parameters for composting night soil in Korea. Compost Sci Utilization, 5:46 – 51.