MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR DETERMINING THE INFLUENCE OF SOME ABIOTIC FACTORS ON MICROBIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY IN TWO COMPOSTING VARIANTS

Microbiological activity in composting is a complex process that depends on many abiotic factors. The mathematical model presented in this article is based on collected empirical data, on the basis of which the problem of predicting the values of several independent variables is solved. A standard statistical procedure of correlation matrix calculation and regression analysis is used. Two compost variants, differing in the microbiological agent added in one of them, were set. The amount of microorganisms was higher in the variant with microbial addition, and in both variants the amount and activity of microorganisms decreased during the thermophilic phase of composting. Actinomycetes take the major part of the total microflora, followed by non-spore-forming bacteria, except in the thermophilic phase, where the proportion of spore-forming bacteria is higher and mould fungi completely die out. The results of the laboratory tests determining the microbiological activity and the results of the regression models for each stage of the two composting treatments under study were obtained. The presented mathematical model can be used to predict microbiological activity during composting under different abiotic conditions and to optimize the process.