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Short-duration hydrothermal fermentation of food waste: preparation of soil conditioner for amending organic-matter-impoverished arable soils

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Abstract

Soil conditioners can be used to compensate for the insufficient soil nutrition and organic matter (OM) of arable soils. However, the traditional preparation method for soil conditioners is lengthy and requires facilities that occupy large tracts of land. In this study, a short-duration hydrothermal fermentation (SHF) method was developed for the preparation of soil conditioners from food waste. The SHF method required only 18 h to produce soil conditioners with physicochemical characteristics that were similar to those of soil conditioners obtained through traditional fermentation (TF), which takes 20 days to complete. Inoculation and dynamic SHF significantly affected the distribution of different molecular weight fractions in the prepared soil conditioners. The results of spectral analysis revealed that a large amount of soluble microbial byproducts and carbohydrate C formed in the SHF soil conditioner. This effect indicated that the SHF soil conditioner supplied not only immediately available nutrients, which can stimulate the growth of soil microbial communities, but also provided sustained-release nutrients for the long-term cultivation of crops on OM-impoverished soils. Cyanobacteria were present in the SHF soil conditioner at a relative abundance of 6.29%, which was 28.6 and 314.5 times those in the raw material and TF soil conditioner, respectively. Amending OM-impoverished soil with the SHF soil conditioner enhanced the carbon pool management index of the resulting SHF soil by 1.50 and 1.12 times those of unfertilized soil and TF soil, respectively. These results indicated that the SHF soil exhibited a high capacity to supply nutrients for crop growth.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51408572) and China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists (No. 51325804).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Jiaqi Hou, Beidou Xi & Hongliang Liu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, No. 8, Dayangfang, Beiyuan Road, Beijing, 100012, China

    Jiaqi Hou, Mingxiao Li, Beidou Xi, Wenbing Tan, Jie Ding, Yan Hao, Dongming Liu & Hongliang Liu

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  1. Jiaqi Hou
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  2. Mingxiao Li
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  3. Beidou Xi
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Correspondence to Mingxiao Li or Beidou Xi.

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Hou, J., Li, M., Xi, B. et al. Short-duration hydrothermal fermentation of food waste: preparation of soil conditioner for amending organic-matter-impoverished arable soils. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 21283–21297 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9514-3

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