Impact of carbonatation lime addition on composting of vegetable oil refining sludge

The aim of the present work is to evaluate how the vegetable oil refining sludge produced by the agro-food industry could be composted using carbonatation lime and green waste as bulking agents. To achieve this goal, three windrows were prepared with different mixtures: windrow 1 contained oil sludge and green waste (20:10 on a wet mass basis) while windrow 2 contained oil sludge, green waste and carbonatation lime (20:10:10, on a wet mass basis). The composition of windrow 3 was: oil sludge, green waste and carbonatation lime (20:10:20, on a wet mass basis). The results showed that the use of carbonatation lime for composting vegetable oil refining sludge was able to regulate the high acidity of the sludge and thus to obtain an optimal pH value for the launching and maintenance of the composting process. The addition of carbonatation lime also gave better reduction of microbial activity without any negative effect on composting. The compost prepared with oil refining sludge (49% fresh mass), carbonatation lime (27%) and green waste (24%) exhibited the best quality with C/N ratio and pH values within the norm NFU44-051. These promising results could be a sustainable solution for the valorization of both oil refining sludge and sugar carbonatation lime.

Key words: co-composting, vegetable oil refining sludge, carbonatation lime, green waste, physicochemical monitoring, microbial activity