Physico-chemical and biological characterization of mixed fruit peels waste.

Solid waste is becoming a major problem day by day. Fruit waste is a significant fraction in municipal solid waste and it contains high moisture content and high volatile solids concentration or organic content. Due to this, it easily degrades in the environment and releases nuisance gases like CH4, H2S, CO2, NH3 etc.The most suitable method for treating fruit waste is composting. The Composting rate depends on the nature of the biodegradable materials, so the main objective of this paper is to characterize mixed fruit waste and determine its rate and extent of biodegradation. The mixed fruit waste samples were biodegraded using different inocula such as soil bacteria, cow dung and sludge. As part of this study, the first step was to estimate the amount of fruit waste generated in IIT Kharagpur campus. A survey of fruit shops in the market and other areas of IIT Kharagpur campus was conducted for a period of one week (Sep to Oct 2017) to determine how much fruit waste is generated per day. Five different fruit peel samples were used in this study: Citrus Limetta (Mosambi), Mango, Banana, Pineapple, Pomegranate and the same were characterized for various physico-chemical and biological parameters: moisture content (MC), volatile solids (VS), total solids (TS), fixed solids (FS), Tannin lignin, phosphate according to (APHA, et al., 2005), total carbon, total nitrogen, total sulfur, total hydrogen through CHNS analyzer, scanning electron microscope (SEM) images were used to obtain information about the sample's surface topography, energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) to identify the elements in each sample, and the calorific value of the samples. Around 47 kg/day of fruit waste was generated in the monsoon season in IIT Kharagpur campus. Batch biodegradation study was conducted under aerobic conditions by incubating a mixture of all the five type of fruit peels in equal proportion. In the first degradation study of fruit waste,70.80 % removal of TSS was observed to be 65 Days and65.94 % removal of VSS was observed to be in 65 days. And second batch degradation study of fruit waste,62.29% removal of TSS to be observed 13 Days and 61.4% removal of VSS was observed to be in 13 Days. And in third batch biodegradation study of fruit waste,64.73% removal of TSS was observed in 13 Days and 55.41% removal of VSS was observed in 13 Days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]