Feedstock
Food waste used in this experimental study was collected from a hostel mess of National Institute
of Technology Calicut, Kerala, India. The food wastes obtained were shredded, mixed and stored
at 5°C until it is introduced in the anaerobic digester. The solid concentration taken in all the
reactors were 7.5% total solids, found as optimum value from the previous experiments (Deepanraj
et al., 2014). Substrates with 5 different pH (5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) were prepared with the help of 1 N
sodium bicarbonate solution. The characteristics of the substrate used were determined before and
after digestion. For the entire experiments, cow dung was used as inoculum (10% inoculum to feed
ratio).