Co-composting of Wheat Straw and Food Waste with and without

Microbial Agent

Xiangdan Jin

1,2 a

, Weidang Ai

2,3 b

and Wenyi Dong

1,4 c

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China

Space Science and Technology Institute (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, China

National key Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering, China Astronaut Research and Training Center, Beijing, China

Public Platform for Technological Service in Urban Waste Reuse and Energy Regeneration, Shenzhen, China

Keywords: Aerobic Composting, Microbial Agent, Wheat Straw, Maturity.

Abstract: In China, the treatment of agriculture residue and food waste is of great concern. Aerobic composting is

gaining increasing attention because it can improve both organic waste recycling and soil remediation. The

aim of this study was to evaluate the composting process of the mixture of wheat straw and food waste, and

the effect of microbial agent on the degradation process. Results showed that typical temperature variation

curves were observed with peak values at 65.8℃ and 60.5℃ with and without inoculation, respectively. VS,

DOC, NH

-N and C/N decreased over the composting process, while pH, EC, NO

-N and GI showed an

opposite trend. The microbial community diversity was analyzed and Firmicutes, Proteobacteria,

Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Ascomycota enriched in the compost. At the end of the composting process,

the maturity was indicated by the finial C/N ratio and GI which reached 11.26±0.84 and 144.68±14.95% with

inoculation. Inoculation had a positive effect on composting performance but is less economic.

1 INTRODUCTION

As a big agricultural country, China produces

abundant of biomass wastes including agriculture

residues, forestry waste, livestock manure and food

waste annually. Among these biomass resources,

wheat straw represents a large portion in crop

residues which could be used for land application

(Zhu et al., 2020). Wheat straw can be utilized as fuel

for household cooking, silage for livestock, and

material for mulching. However, most of the straws

are burned in the open field since it is cost effective

and convenient, resulting in serious environmental

problems such as greenhouse gases and harmful

smoke generation and a waste of biomass resources.

At present, the main technologies to treat and recycle

agriculture wastes are anaerobic digestion (AD) and

aerobic composting (AC) (Li et al., 2011; Qian et al.,

2014). Since methane rich biogas can be produced

and seldom maintenance is required during the AD

process, biogas plants have been largely constructed

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8812-1808

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3748-227X

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3055-3592

and employed for biomass conversion. Nevertheless,

crop straws which is rich in lignocellulose and

resistant to degrade is always co-digested with other

easily biodegradable substrates (Lehtomäki et al.,

2007). Problems related to crop straws in AD such as

raw material floating, low degradation rate and

difficult discharging are quite annoying. In addition,

large amount of biogas slurry and biogas residue is

produced and extra efforts on post-treatment are

necessary to eliminate the negative effects for further

land application (Wang et al., 2016).

Compared to AD, AC can convert crop straws into

organic fertilizer directly in a sustainable and

environmental friendly way which has been

recommended in recent years (Bernal et al., 2009).

AC is a process that breaks down organic wastes and

produces CO

, water, mineral ions and stabilized

organic matters under certain conditions. The product

is beneficial for soil amendment and plant growth.

The process is induced by the activities of various

microbial communities and influenced by factors

Jin, X., Ai, W. and Dong, W.

Co-composting of Wheat Straw and Food Waste with and without Microbial Agent.

DOI: 10.5220/0011195300003443

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Bioinformatics (ICBEB 2022), pages 189-197

ISBN: 978-989-758-595-1

189

such as substrate properties, C/N ratio, moisture

content, temperature, pH value, bulk density, oxygen

supply and raw material size (Hubbe et al., 2010).

Nowadays, AC has been widely applied in the

treatment of various kinds of organic wastes (Wei et

al., 2017). Usually, straws are dosed as supplements

and co-composted with livestock and poultry

manures or sewage sludge (Meng et al., 2019).

Studies on AC of wheat straw as the bulking material

are still lacking. In this study, straws were used as the

main composition of the compost and food waste was

added to promote the degradation process. Wheat

straw have high C/N ratio, low moisture content and

porous structure while food waste has the opposite

physicochemical properties. The mixture of these two

kinds of materials can provide more balanced

nutrient, proper moisture content and better

ventilation condition for the microorganisms to carry

out the composting process.

Accordingly, the present study aimed to evaluate

the treatment effect of co-composting of wheat straw

and food waste, and explore the effect of selected

microbial agent on the degradation performance. The

forms and distribution characteristics of carbon and

nitrogen were determined along with other

conventional parameters. Species succession among

the microbial communities was investigated during

the composting process. Besides, the evaluation of the

compost maturity and quality was performed.

2 METHODS AND MATERIALS

2.1 Feedstocks and Microbial Agent

Wheat straw were purchased from a farm of Jiangsu

Province, China. The straw was air-dried and

smashed to 1-3 cm. Food waste was collected from

the canteen of one research institution. Bones, plastic

bags, napkins and other raffles were picked out and

leachate was drained. Collected food waste was

shredded by a food grinder into mushy mixture and

stored at -20℃ before use. The characteristics of the

feedstocks are shown in Table 1. Microbial agent

mainly containing Chelatococcus composti, Bacillus

thermoamylovorans, Aspergillus fumigatus, and

Aspergillus niger was prepared and the concentration

of each strain was about 109 cfu/mL.

Table 1: Basic physicochemical properties of the feedstock.

Paramete

Wheat straw Food waste

Input in each

reactor (kg)

2.2±0.1 2.5±0.1

Water content

(

)

10.24±0.23 80.57±0.34

Volatile solid

content

(

)

94.83±0.13 87.25±0.91

TC (%Dry

weight)

50.16±0.21 40.24±0.31

TN (%Dry

wei

)

1.12±0.11 2.96±0.13

C/N ratio 44.84 14.13

2.2 Experimental Apparatus and Tests

Composting was conducted in plastic bins of 30 L

valid capacity with 46.5 cm in height and 32 cm in

diameter. The compost bins were covered with

insulating cotton to retain metabolic heat. An annular

aeration pipe was placed at the bottom of the bin and

1 L/min aeration rate was set through an aerator pump

for the composting process. A perforated

polyvinylchloride tray was installed above the

aeration pipe to support the compost and distribute

the air uniformly. The structure of the composting

reactor can be referred to Zhang et al (2021). Firstly,

wheat straw was placed in a large-size plastic drum

and certain amount of distill water was added to

obtain the water content at around 65%. Then food

waste was added to adjust the C/N ratio of mixed

substrates to 32-35. Substrates were mixed

thoroughly by hand to assure the maximum

homogeneity.

For the inoculated treatments, a concentration of

0.5% (dry weight basis, w/w) microbial agent was

introduced. Treatments with identical substrate

composition but no microbial agent were served as

the control groups. About 7.2 kg mixed substrate was

placed in each compost bin occupying 85% of the

volume. The experiment lasted for 30 days and

samples were collected every 4 days for parameter

analysis. Turning and mixing was conducted

manually every 7 days to break any lumps formed and

ensure the optimal aeration in the system.

2.3 Analytical Methods

Temperature was measured daily by a thermometer

inserting at three locations in the compost bins

(surface, 10 cm depth; core, 25 cm depth; and bottom,

38 cm depth), and the average temperature was

recorded. The water content and volatile solid (VS)

content were measured according to Standard

Methods (APHA, 1998). Total carbon and total

ICBEB 2022 - The International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Bioinformatics

190

nitrogen content of dried samples were analyzed by

an auto elemental analyzer (Vario MACRO cube,

Elementar, Germany). About 5.0 g of fresh sample

was extracted with 50 mL deionized water (1:10 w/v

ratio) using a shaker at 100 rpm for 2 h followed by

centrifugation at 10000 rpm for 10 min. Then the

supernatant was measured for pH and electrical

conductivity (EC) by a pH/EC meter (Orion VERSA

STAR Pro, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA). The

absorbance of supernatant at wavelengths of 465 nm

(E4) and 665 nm (E6) was measured using a

spectrophotometer (UV-2600, Shimadzu, Japan). The

supernatant was then filtered through 0.45 μm filter

membranes. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and

nitrate (NO

-N) were measured by a TOC/TN

analyzer (TOC-L, Shimadzu, Japan) and an ion

chromatography (ICS-5000+, Thermo Fisher, USA),

respectively. Ammonium nitrogen (NH

-N) was

analyzed via a continuous flow analyzer (Syslyzer Ⅲ,

Systea, Italy).

For microbial community determination, about

0.3-0.5 g fresh samples were stored at -20℃ for

genomic DNA extraction and 16s rRNA/18S rRNA

amplification. The V3-V4 hypervariable-region was

amplified with the bacterial universal primer sets:

338F (5’-ACTCCTACGGGAGGCAGCAG-3’) and

806R (5’-GGACTACHVGGGTWTCTAAT-3’).

Primers of 18S rRNA: 528F (5’-

GCGGTAATTCCAGCTCCAA-3’) and 706R (5’-

AATCCRAGAATTTCACCTCT-3’), were used to

analyze fungal communities. All the sequencing

analysis was conducted by Shanghai Majorbio Bio-

Pharm Technology Co., Ltd (Shanghai, China) on an

Illumina Miseq platform. All the pairs of sequences

were clustered into Operational Taxonomic Units

(OTUs) based on a ≥97% identity threshold by the

SILVA database.

A phytotoxicity test was performed by seed

germination with Chinese cabbage seeds. The 1:10

aqueous extract of compost was prepared and 6 mL

of the extract was added into a sterile petri dish (90

mm in diameter) containing a filter paper. About 20

Chinese cabbage seeds were placed on the filter paper

and incubated in the dark at 25℃. In contrast, 6 mL

deionized water was used as the control experiment.

After incubation for 48-72 h, the numbers of

germinated seed and root length were measured and

recorded. Germination index (GI) was calculated

according to the reference (Zucconi, 1981).

2.4 Statistical Analysis

Statistical analyses were performed in duplicate

samples and the average values with standard

deviation were reported. The data were processed to

a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) using IBM

SPSS statistics ver. 22.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Temperature Variation during the

Composting Process

Temperature variations in all composting bins were

monitored and showed in Figure 1. The ambient

temperature varied within a narrow range from

25.5℃ to 29.0℃. In experiments with inoculation,

the temperature increased rapidly to the thermophilic

value (>50℃) after 4 days’ composting. A further

increase was observed and temperature reached its

peak at 65.8±1.0℃ on day 5. The thermophilic stage

lasted for 7 days when most potential pathogens, pets

and weed seeds were likely to be killed. Then

temperature of composts showed a downward trend

to around 40℃ followed by a maturation phase when

the temperature ranged from 39.2℃ to 31.5℃ until

the end of experiment. In the control treatments,

temperature variations experienced similar

mesophilic, thermophilic, cooling and maturation

phases. The maximum temperature reached

60.5±1.0℃ on day 8 and the duration of thermophilic

stage was 5 days.

Figure 1: Temperature variation during the composting

process. Compost IN means composting experiment with

inoculum; Compost CK means control experiment.

In this work, though the main component was

wheat straw which is rich in lignocellulose and

recalcitrant to decomposed (Yu et al., 2007), the

presence of easily degradable organic materials

Co-composting of Wheat Straw and Food Waste with and without Microbial Agent

191

supplied by food waste contributed to initiate the bio-

process successfully. Metabolic heat was released

significantly by the activity of microorganism in the

organic matter decomposition process. In the control

tests, the temperature increased rapidly during

mesophilic and well maintained in thermophilic

phase with the effect of endogenous microorganisms.

However, slightly lower temperature values were

observed during the whole experiment as well as a

shorter thermophilic duration time in the control

groups compared those in tests with exogenous

microbial agent.

3.2 Changes of Moisture, pH, EC and

E4/E6

Many studies have stated that the optimal water

content for AC is 50-60% (Mohee and Mudoo, 2005).

However, the initial water content in this study was

adjusted slightly higher at 65% with lignocellulose-

rich and porous structure substrates. A rise in the

water content was observed in the early stage due to

thriving microbial metabolic activities (Figure 2a).

The water content peaked at 83.43±3.41 % on day 8

and at 77.63±3.12 % on day 12 with and without

inoculation, respectively. Though high temperature

enhanced the moisture evaporation, the generation of

metabolized water was stronger than the moisture

ventilation during the mesophilic and thermophilic

stages. Moreover, moisture condensed on the lid of

the bin and fell back to the mixture which also caused

an increase in water level and the hydrothermal

environment. Along with the constant ventilation

forced by aeration and decreasing microbial

decomposition rate, water content was reduced till the

end of the composting to around 59.07±1.84 % and

62.75±1.17% with and without inoculation,

respectively. No leachate was collected at the bottom

of the bin.

Similar changes in pH were observed in

inoculated and non-inoculated treatments (Figure 2b).

Initially, pH was acidic and the value was around 4.5

in all bins. The low pH was attributed by amino acids

and fatty acids which were produced from the easy-

degraded organic matters from food waste such as

carbohydrates, protein and fat. Along with the

consumption of intermediate compounds (mainly

organic acids) and the release of ammonia, pH

increased immediately to 7.0-8.0 and then fluctuated

around this value until the end of composting. With

easy-degraded organic materials exhausted, complex

lignocellulosic substrates were gradually degraded

since the fiber surface has been soften in the humid

and acidic environment. The compost samples from

maturation phase were slightly alkaline (7.5-8.5)

which were suitable for the growth of microorganism

and plant seedlings (Bustamante et al., 2008).

EC indicates the salinity level of substrates and

the possible phytotoxic effects. As illustrated in

Figure 2c, EC showed a continuously increasing trend

from 1.86±0.01 mS/cm and 1.61±0.11 mS/cm with

and without inoculation, respectively, to about 3.50

mS/cm at the end of the composting process. The

increase in EC was induced by the decomposition of

complex organic matters into small molecule

dissolved organic matters as well as the release of

mineral ions. During the whole process, EC values

with inoculation were higher than those in

experiments without inoculation, suggesting that the

degradation and mineralization of organic matters

could be enhanced by the activities of both

endogenous and exogenous microorganisms. Some

researches have stated that a high EC (>4 mS/cm)

related with high salt content had adverse effects on

plant cultivation (Meng et al., 2019). In this study, EC

of processed compost was found below 4 mS/cm

which was within the prescribed limits of

phytotoxicity.

The absorbance at 465 nm (E4) and 665 nm (E6)

of aqueous extracts of compost were determined and

E4/E6 ratio was described in Figure 2d. E4/E6

underwent an increase and the highest value reached

to 8.04±0.32 and 7.23±0.71 with and without

inoculation, respectively. Positive linear relationship

between water soluble organic carbon and absorbance

at 465 nm has been approved. Therefore, the increase

in E4/E6 ratio indicated that more water soluble

organic carbon existed via decomposition of organic

compounds. Then E4/E6 ratio of the inoculation

experiment and control experiment declined to

3.36±0.11 and 4.05±0.16 at the end of the

composting, respectively. Information on

condensation degree of humus with aromatic nucleus

can be provided by E4/E6 ratio (Inbar et al., 1993).

The decline in E4/E6 ratio was likely caused by the

consumption of small molecule organic matters and

the formation of humic substances.

(a)

ICBEB 2022 - The International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Bioinformatics

192

Figure 2: Changes in physicochemical parameters during

composting.

3.3 The VS Content and DOC

Evolution

The VS content decreased along with composting

time for all treatments due to the loss of organic

matters by microbial degradation (Figure 3a). The

initial VS was around 93%. Overall, experiments with

inoculation had a higher loss of VS content (27%)

than that in the control (18%). A sharper decline

during the mesophilic-thermophilic stage suggested

that easy-degraded organic matters were mainly

utilized. They were converted into small molecule

dissolved organic matters which was consistent with

the increase in DOC during the first few days (Figure

3b). The maximum values of DOC reached to

32.17±1.86 g/kg and 26.44±1.50 g/kg with and

without inoculation, respectively. Since small

molecule soluble organic matters were more available

to microbes, decreases in DOC was observed with the

depletion of soluble organic matters. Afterwards, the

relative low degree of VS loss during the cooling and

maturation stage was contributed by the

huminification of recalcitrant decomposable

compounds. The final VS contents of the composting

mixtures were 67.07±1.22% and 74.53±1.96% with

and without inoculation, respectively. At the end of

the composting, the DOC contents in all treatment

were around 10 g/kg which was identical to that in the

previous work (Zhou et al., 2014) which conducted

the co-composition of food waste and sawdust. Wider

variation ranges were observed both in VS content

and DOC with inoculation than those in the control.

This suggested a higher metabolic activity of

microorganisms with inoculation than that in the

control throughout the entire composting process.

Figure 3: VS content (a) and DOC (b) evolution during

composting process.

(

)

(c)

(

)

(a)

(

)

Co-composting of Wheat Straw and Food Waste with and without Microbial Agent

193

3.4 Changes in Ammonia Nitrogen and

Nitrate Nitrogen

Figure 4 shows the changes in concentrations of

-N and NO

-N in extract during the composting

process. The concentration of NH

-N followed a

typical trend which NH

-N increased during the

early stage of the process, then decreased as the

process progressed and reached a low level at the end

of the composting process. The increase during the

early days was due to the conversion of organic-N

compounds into NH

-N via ammonification (Gao et

al., 2010). The amount of NH

-N reached a peak at

1138.18±18.27 mg/kg and 952.86±77.55 mg/kg with

and without inoculation, respectively, on day 8.

Simultaneously, the volatilization loss of NH

-N was

enhanced by the high temperature. Then the NH

-N

concentrations declined and the final values were

220.24±28.26 mg/kg and 288.94±32.45 mg/kg in the

inoculated and non-inoculated treatments,

respectively. Values below the maximum limit of 400

mg/kg for NH

-N content were recommended for

mature compost in many researches (Luo et al.,

2018). In this work, values blow 330 mg/kg in NH

N concentrations of finished compost were obtained.

The concentration of NO

-N was relatively low

and steady during of first 12 days of the composting

process. Less NO

-N was generated when little

nitrification happened during thermophilic stage

since the activity and growth of nitrifying bacteria

was inhibited by high temperature and excessive

amount of ammonia. Afterwards, the amount of NO

-N increased gradually when nitrifying bacterial

turned from dormant to active physiological state.

The final content of NO

-N reached 849.58±72.94

mg/kg and 385.63±41.71 mg/kg with and without

inoculation, respectively. Usually, the production of

nitrate rich compost is desired since NO

-N is a more

favorable source of N to be absorbed than NH

-N for

plant cultivation (Sun et al., 2016).

Figure 4: Changes in concentrations of NH

-N (a) and

-N (b) during the composting process.

3.5 Changes in Microbial Community

Structure

To evaluate microbial community diversity and

dynamic changes during the AC process, samples

were collected from original, thermophilic, cooling

and maturation phases. Five phyla were dominant and

accounted for more than 97% of the sequences which

were Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria,

Bacteroidetes and Ascomycota. As composting

processed, succession of the microbial community

emerged induced by differences in environmental

conditions and substrate composition.

Microbial relative abundance at the genus levels

is shown in Figure 5. At beginning, as described in

Figure 5a, the top 5 bacterial genera included

Leuconostoc, Weissella, Lactococcus, Lactobacillu

and Pediococcus whose relative abundance was

96.78%. On day 4, dominant bacteria switched to

Lactobacillus, Paenibacillus, Brevibacillus, Bacillus

and Acinetobacter. Their relative abundance were

74.83% and 75.20% in the control and inoculated

experiments, respectively. Lactobacillus bacteria is

always found in plant-derived raw material

decomposing systems and can accelerate compost

ripening (Li et al., 2020). Bacillus is thermotolerant

and able to secrete various extracellular enzymes such

as proteases, amylase and cellulases which

contributes a lot in lignocellulosic degradation

(Jurado et al., 2014). Afterwards, the relative

abundance of the top 5 bacterial genera changed and

their relative abundance decreased from 55.85% on

day 12 to 27.04% on day 22 in the control groups, and

from 47.21% to 18.36% in the inoculated groups.

Along with composting processed, the bacterial

community composition seemed more complicated

and diverse which had a positive effect on the

lignocellulosic substrate degradation.

(a)

(

)

ICBEB 2022 - The International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Bioinformatics

194

Specially, fungi are actively involved in the

degradation of lignocellullosic compounds via

producing a broad variety of functional enzymes and

physical destruction by the fungal hyphae (Yu et al.,

2007). Fungal relative abundance at the genus levels

is shown in Figure 5b. At day 0, the dominant fungal

genera were Candida (83.35%), Wallemia (11.99%)

and Aspergillus (3.64%). At day 4 in the inoculation

and control experiment, Aspergillus as a

thermotolerant fungus proliferated to 94.27% and

79.57, respectively. Later, the relative abundance of

Thermomyces showed a dominant value. During the

maturation phase, the major genera evolved to

Thermomyces (84.94%), Mycothermus (10.30%), and

Myceliophthora (4.25%) in the control groups while

those values were 67.81%, 27.66% and 3.96% with

inoculation, separately.

Figure 5: The genus composition of the bacterial

community (a) and fungal community (b) at different stages

of AC.

More diversity appeared during the maturation

phase in the inoculation groups compared those in the

control groups. Though the inoculated strains did not

proliferated during the whole period, the richness and

diversity of the microbial community increased with

more metabolism pathways of substrates which led to

the better composting efficiency.

3.6 Compost Maturity Evaluation with

C/N and Germination Experiment

Organic carbon and nitrogen are commonly utilized

by microorganisms for cell growth and metabolic

activity during AC, which leads to variations in the

C/N ratio. The loss of carbon and nitrogen is mainly

in the form of CO

and NH

stripping. Since the

degradation of carbon is faster than the release of

nitrogen, the decline in the C/N ratio during the

composting period is always observed (Zhou et al.,

2014). In our work, the initial C/N ratio of the

composting mixtures was around 33 which located

within the appropriate levels for composting

microbes (Figure 6a). The C/N ratio showed a

downward trend and the final values dropped to

11.26±0.84 and 13.95±0.93 with and without

inoculation, respectively. The final C/N ratio can be

used to assess the compost maturity. Some studies

stated a value equal to or less than 20 indicates a

satisfactory maturation (Fourti, 2013).

Phytotoxicity determined by the germination

experiment is also used to test compost safety and

maturity (Yang et al., 2013). The response of Chinese

cabbage to the toxicity of the compost water extract

in term of GI is illustrated in Figure 6b. The GI values

of all experiments dropped during the early stage of

composting process. The lowest values reached about

10% which suggested a very toxic extract of the

compost product. The seed germination was inhibited

by the excessive toxic materials such as short chain

volatile fatty acids and ammonia which was proved

by the low pH (Figure 2b) and high NH

-N content

(Figure 4a). With the depletion of the toxic materials,

the GI values rose significantly and reached to

144.68±14.95% and 92.64±12.27% at the end of

composting with and without inoculation,

respectively. Many reports have claimed that a more

than 50% GI indicated the compost was phytotoxic-

free while a more than 80% value indicated mature

product (Luo et al., 2018). Values above 1 indicated

a positive effect of finished compost on seed

germination. Clearly, inoculation was helpful in

enhancing the maturity and releasing of nutrients in

accordance with the higher NO

-N concentration in

compost extract.

(a)

(

)

Co-composting of Wheat Straw and Food Waste with and without Microbial Agent

195

Figure 6: Changes in C/N (a) and germination index (GI)

(b) during the composting process.

4 CONCLUSIONS

In all treatments, typical variation curves in

parameters such as temperature, EC, DOC, C/N and

the succession of microbial community were

observed. Produced composts were found to be

phytotoxic-free convinced by the germination

experiment. When microbial agent was applied,

better performance was obtained during co-

composting of wheat straw and food waste proved by

the relatively higher thermophilic temperatures,

lower C/N ratio and higher GI value. Inoculation

contributed to a more diverse microbial community

and had a clear advantage in acceleration of the

compost degradation, sanitation and maturation

process. However, application of microbial agent is

less economic. Without microbial agent, satisfied

results could still be achieved because of the

appropriate composting conditions such as nutrient

adjustment, forced aeration and active endogenous

microorganisms.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by The Open Funding

Project of National Key Laboratory of Human Factors

Engineering (grant number 6142222190714), and

Key Laboratory of Shenzhen Longgang District

(grant number ZSYS2017001).

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