Food Waste Composting at Faculty of Engineering …
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Table 2 Configurations of
reactors used for composting
process
Configuration
Reactor 1 Reactor 2 Reactor 3
Window at the top of
compartment
Yes
Yes
Yes
Window at the front side
of compartment
Yes
Yes
Yes
Holes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Turning
Yes
Yes
No
Table 3 Scale for odour test
during the composting
process
Grade scale
Description
1
No odour
Odourless
1.5
Very week odour
Not unpleasant
2
Week odour
Not unpleasant
2.5
Slightly unpleasant
3
Bearable odour
Not unpleasant
3.5
Slightly unpleasant
4
Pestering odour
Slightly unpleasant
4.5
Unpleasant
5
Unbearable odour
Very unpleasant
6
Extremely unbearable
odour
Extremely unpleasant
Monitoring of the Composting Process
(a) Temperature profile
Temperature of the compost was measured daily by inserting the digital thermometer
at the holes of the composter. Temperature reading was taken at three different location which are bottom (T1), middle (T2) and top (T3) of the compartment (Fig. 1).
The ambient temperature was also recorded.
(b) Odour
In this work, the odour was measured qualitatively by scaling the intensity of the
odour from 1 (Odourless) to 6 (Extremely unpleasant), as shown in Table 3. Odour test
was conducted three times per week, by four different students which was standing at
each corner of the composting reactor as shown in Fig. 2. The odour at two different
distance was recorded accordingly: 1 and 2 m from the composting reactor.