Improvement Of Efb Lignocellulosic Degradation, Organic Matter And Compost Quality With Natural Zeolite

Composting is an excellent way of treating organic waste such as empty fruit bunches (EFB), which are one of the waste that highly produce by palm industry lately. It about 20% of EFB is generated for every tonne of fresh fruit bunch in production of crude palm oil. Composting of EFB produces EFB compost that will be beneficial to agriculture. However, large nitrogen loss during the process has reduced the value of compost as an organic fertilizer. Zeolite is added to offset the loss of nitrogen that can lowered the nitrogen reduction and also reduce air pollution. This study was focused on investigating the improvement quality of EFB compost produced from composting of EFB with palm oil mill effluent and natural zeolites bulking agent. The composting process was performed in laboratory scale with 250 ml flasks at two different temperatures of 30℃ and 50℃. The temperatures were kept constant throughout the experiments to investigate effect of constant temperatures on features of EFB compost. Better performance was found in the EFB compost produced from composting of EFB with palm oil mill effluent and zeolite at 50℃. The EFB compost had the optimum pH in range 5.5 to 8, carbon to nitrogen ratio 5.2, phosphorus content of 5.3% and optimum moisture content 70%