title: Anaerobic digestion of tomato processing waste: Effect of alkaline pretreatment.
abstract: The objective of the work was to assess the effect of mild alkaline pretreatment on the anaerobic biodegradability of tomato processing waste (TPW). Experiments were carried out in duplicate BMP bottles using a pretreatment contact time of 4 and 24 h and a 1% and 5% NaOH dosage. The cumulative methane production during a 30 d period was recorded and modelled. The alkaline pretreatment did not significantly affect methane production in any of the treatments in comparison to the control. The average methane production for all runs was 320 NmL/gVS. Based on first order kinetic modelling, the alkaline pretreatment was found to slow down the rate of methanogenesis, mainly in the two reactors with the highest NaOH dosage. The biodegradability of the substrates ranged from 0.75 to 0.82 and from 0.66 to 0.72 based on two different approaches.
authors: Department of Civil, Energy Environmental and Materials Engineering, Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Via Graziella loc. Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy. Electronic address: paolo.calabro@unirc.it.
authors: Paolo S
authors: PS
authors: Calabrò
authors: Department of Civil, Energy Environmental and Materials Engineering, Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Via Graziella loc. Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy.
authors: Rosa
authors: R
authors: Greco
authors: Department of Environmental Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi 671 00, Greece.
authors: Alexandros
authors: A
authors: Evangelou
authors: Department of Environmental Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi 671 00, Greece.
authors: Dimitrios
authors: D
authors: Komilis
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D005525:Food-Processing Industry / Q000379:methods*; D007220:Industrial Waste; D018551:Solanum lycopersicum; D008697:Methane / Q000096:biosynthesis; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D007220:Industrial Waste; D008697:Methane
keywords: Alkaline pretreatment; Anaerobic digestion; Biochemical methane potential; Kinetics; Tomato waste