Respirometric Index and Biogas Potential of Different Foods and Agricultural Discarded Biomass

The biological stability of biomass is an important parameter for treatment plant design, process control or compost use. Measuring the biological reactivity of waste with the help of indicators such as respirometric indexes (RI) becomes an important tool to prevent the significant environmental impact of biodegradable wastes in accordance with European legislation. The aim of this paper is to show the importance of the RI technique as a tool to establish further uses of biomass such as fertilizer or biogas. The respirometric process length for different types of biomass (grape marc, apple pomace and olive pomace) was quantified. Higher moisture content seemed to favor the biological activi…