Use of chemometrics in the chemical and microbiological characterization of composts from agroindustrial wastes

Physico-chemical, chemical and microbiological parameters were studied in a set of fifteen different composts elaborated with agroindustrial wastes using two different composting systems (turning and static pile composting). To carry out the chemometric evaluation, multivariate statistical analysis techniques, such as hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and factorial analysis (FA) were used. Composts obtained showed suitable physico-chemical and chemical properties for their use as organic amendment and a good maturity degree. HCA allowed to classify the organic materials mainly in four groups: cluster A, cluster B, cluster C and unclustered composts; also, this statistical tool showed the lack of influence of the composting system in the final characteristics of these composts. On the other hand, through FA, it was possible to identify the principal variables associated to the composting of agroindustrial wastes in four factors that explained 72.3% of the variability. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.