Development and application of an Enzymatic Hydrolysis test to assess the biodegradability of organic waste material

A novel and rapid biodegradability test method has been developed based on the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose. The test method consists of three phases, in which the first two phases consist of the pH buffer addition, and then autoclaving of the mixture and the final phase is the addition of the enzyme mixture and incubation. An initial investigation was carried out to determine the optimum conditions for the enzymes using standard commercial cellulose as the substrate. The optimised test was then applied to a wide range of organic waste samples including untreated and treated MSW derived mixed BMW, and specific wastes such as waste wood, packaging waste (cardboard), turkey feathers and green waste. The DOC released by enzymatic hydrolysis indicates that this could give an indication of the sample biodegradability. However the DOC released in phases 1 and 2 may also contain some biodegradable components (depending on the extent of biological treatment applied to the waste sample) and these would need to be differentiated from the non-biodegradable DOC and used together with the DOC from phase 3 to give the best possible biodegradability indication.