A review of mathematical models for composting

Application of Optimization and Modeling for the Composting Process Enhancement

“…The steady growth of industrial production and trade in many countries of the world has led to a rapid increase in the generation of municipal and industrial waste in the last decade [1]. About 50% of the waste generated worldwide consists of organic matter, generally from food, human and animal waste, garden and wood products [2]. A significant portion of this waste ends up in landfills and, if not properly treated, can pose a significant threat to the environment and human health [3].…”

“…Composting is an environmentally friendly and cost-effective substitute for processing organic waste and converting it into organic fertilizer. It is a biological process in which the polymeric waste materials contained in organic waste are degraded by the accelerated growth of fungi and bacteria [2,7]. In fact, it is a very complicated mechanism involving a variety of processes (microbiological, physicochemical and thermodynamic), all of which seem to be interrelated [8].…”

Heat production from biological wood oxidation

“…In the first-order models, the degradation rate is related to the concentration of composting substrates (Haug, 1993). The first-order models are simple and easy because it only requires a single rate coefficient, which makes the first-order models the most prominent one (Walling et al, 2020). However, the first-order models cannot illustrate the effect of other factors on degradation rate, such as spatial distribution of substrates, decreasing availability of substrates, and concentration of microbial biomass (Haug, 1993;Mason, 2006;Wu et al, 2011).…”

“…Over the past decades, many research papers about heat generated from composting have been published (Allain, 2007;Ge et al, 2020;Hess et al, 2004;Liang et al, 2003;Sokolovs et al, 2015;Themelis, 2005;Wu et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2020;Yu et al, 2020;Yu et al, 2019). There are only several review papers relating to heat (Ajmal et al, 2020;Mason, 2006;Walling et al, 2020;Zhao et al, 2017). These reviews have studied: 1) the mathematical models of composting process, including models of energy balance and mass balance (Ajmal et al, 2020;Mason, 2006;Walling et al, 2020); 2) different heat recovery data and different heat recovery methods.…”

“…There are only several review papers relating to heat (Ajmal et al, 2020;Mason, 2006;Walling et al, 2020;Zhao et al, 2017). These reviews have studied: 1) the mathematical models of composting process, including models of energy balance and mass balance (Ajmal et al, 2020;Mason, 2006;Walling et al, 2020); 2) different heat recovery data and different heat recovery methods. For example, summarized 45 composting heat recovery systems and reported their heat recovery data chronologically.…”