High-rate slurry-phase decomposition of food wastes: indirect performance estimation from dissolved oxygen

The high-rate aerobic decomposition of food wastes in a slurry bioreactor has been proved as an effective method for the treatment of food wastes. However, experimental evaluation of bioreactor performance on the decomposition of food wastes was found to be a time-consuming procedure. In this study, the decomposition of carbon was closely correlated with oxygen consumption that could be easily calculated from the time variation of dissolved oxygen. From this observation, a prompt and simple method for indirect estimation of decomposition performance was developed. Using the empirical model, the effects of initial concentration of food wastes and aeration rate were successfully estimated and the decomposition performance of the slurry bioreactor could be indirectly estimated by monitoring the time variation of dissolved oxygen.