A thermophilic strain (NH1) of
Bacillus licheniformis inoculated into a compost raw material can grow significantly and prevent the decrease in pH at the early stage of composting. Thus, the inoculation of NH1 enhances populations of other thermophilic bacterial groups which possess high activity of organic matter decompositon under alkaline condition during the process, and accelerates the rate of composting. It was found out that the effect of inoculation depended on both of the concentrations of NH1 and thermophilic bacteria other than NH1 inhabiting in the raw material, and the higher the concentration of other thermophilic bacteria, the higher the concentration of NH1 should be inoculated for high rate composting. In addition, a ratio of NH1 to the other thermophilic bacteria in the raw material enabling acceleration of composting was confirmed to be larger than 0.05.
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