Spectroscopic characterization of water extractable organic matter during composting of municipal solid waste

This paper aims to characterize the evolution of water extractable organic matter (WEOM) during the composting of municipal solid waste (MSW), and investigate the correlation between maturity and WEOM characteristics. WEOM was extracted at different stages of MSW composting (0, 7, 14, 21, and 51 d) and characterized by FTIR, UV–Vis, and fluorescence spectroscopy. The results obtained show that the composting process decreased aliphatics, alcohols, polysaccharides, as well as protein-like materials, and increased aromatic polycondensation, humification, oxygen-containing functional groups, molecular weight, and humic-like materials. The maturity of MSW during composting was characterized by the presence of the peak with an excitation/emission wavelength pair of 289/421 nm in excitation–emission matrix spectra.