Affiliation:
1. Donghua University
2. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Manitoba
3. Guangxi Subtropical Crops Research Institute
Abstract
Abstract
The direct disposal of waste milk (WM) leads to severe environmental pollution and resource loss. Considering the high content of nutrients, WM has a potential as an ideal raw material for organic fertilizer. In this work, base-activated persulfate (KOH/PS) was used as a new artificial humification technology to transform WM into product with 45.3% of fulvic-like acid (FLA) and 18.9% of humic-like acid (HLA) in 1 hour. Therein, FLA had more active groups (-COOH, -CNOH, -OH) than natural fulvic acid likely owing to hydroxylation, carboxylation and the Millard reaction. Reactive species of •OH and SO4−• generated in KOH/PS system may be related to degradation or polymerization reactions during humification. The product was mixed with attapulgite to fabricate a slow-release nano FLA fertilizer which could increase the yield of chickweeds by 107% compared with the blank as well as the abundance of beneficial bacteria in soil. Overall, this study provided a rapid method for the recycling of waste food and highly-concentrated organic wastewater, which may have a huge application prospect in sustainable agriculture.
Publisher
Research Square Platform LLC