EVALUATION OF PARAMETERS IN AN AEROB INDUSTRIAL FERMENTATION SYSTEM

Meat chicken (broiler) industry continuously increasing all over the world. Due to it, the amount of waste from the chicken industry is also increasing. Therefore, more efficient conversion of chicken manure to organic fertilizer is key problem all over the world. Therefore, the aims of present study are to investigate the changes in temperature and moisture content during composting of chicken manure in a tank fermentation system and create a model to describe the biodegradation processes. In this study, Hydrus software was used for modelling the moisture and temperature distribution in the oval tank during the decomposing processes. It was found that the studied oval tank fermenter can be divided into two main parts considering to the changing of temperature and moisture level. In the first phase - after the intake – where the rate of biodegradation is high there is a heterogeneous temperature zone with decreasing moisture content. Moreover, in this stage a special temperature profile was found at the cross-sectional view of the tank. The second phase was more homogenous both in temperature and moisture content. This stage is the weak fermentation part of the technology results an elongated post fermentation section. It was established, that the changes of temperature and moisture content along the tank fermenter are the same and there is a strong connection between them in the examined period. Our results pointed out that the initial turning and mixing results in a large temperature and moisture content drop and later there is sufficient time for composting to take place. The authors recommend that this system could be used as an efficient treatment for chicken manure materials to decompose and get a valuable base organic fertilizer.