الفهرس 
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Abstract
Three identical reactor vessels were designed, constructed and installed inside the biogas laboratory of the Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University, to study and test their performance in rapid composting of chopped maize stalks from March 2003 until May 2004. A series of experiments were carried out to study and investigate some engineering parameters affecting performance of composting system and composting process such as; aeration rate, shredding sizes, and turning or agitation intervals. Laboratory tests were also executed to examine and evaluate some physical, chemical and Biological properties of the raw materials (cattle dung and chopped maize stalks) fresh compost, and final compost after curing process. The obtained results showed that, to maximize the microbial activity and speed up the composting process of shredded maize stalks with cattle dung, the mixture would be turned (agitated) once every week, aerated by a rate of 0.007 m3/min, and chopped to a smaller particles size of 2.0 <U+2013> 5.5 mm. The energy generation was due to the microorganism?s activity, and found to be 13.37 MJ over the entire experiment period (14 days). The total power consumption in aeration operations were 0.343, 0.568, and 0.823 kW for aeration rates of 0.007, 0.0135, and 0.0203 m3/min, respectively. They also indicated that there were no weed seeds in all treatment samples of fresh and cured composts.