README file
Data Set Title: “Dataset about Meat and Bone Meals Fertilizers at Different Degree of Alkaline Thermo-Baric Hydrolysis”
Data Set Author/s: Luciano Cavani (Department of agricultural and food sciences), ORCID 0000-0002-2612-7857; Andrea Ciurli (Department of agricultural and food sciences, University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0002-6913-8943.

Data Set Contributor/s: Luigi Sciubba (Laboratorio per la gestione circolare di acqua e reflui – ENEA Centro Ricerche Bologna); Giampaolo Di Biase (Department of agricultural and food sciences, University of Bologna), ORCID 0009-0004-9948-8639 Claudio Ciavatta (Department of agricultural and food sciences, University of Bologna) ORCID 0000-0002-7914-4394; Martina Mazzon (Department of agricultural and food sciences, University of Bologna) ORCID 0000-0001-5136-0135

Data Set Contact Person/s: Andrea Ciurli (Department of agricultural and food sciences), ORCID 0000-0002-6913-8943, email: andrea.ciurli3@unibo.it 

Data Set License: this data set is distributed under a CC BY 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Publication Year: 2026
Project Info: joint project developed by Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna and Organazoto Fertilizzanti SPA.

Data set Contents
The data set consists of:
•	1 tabular quantitative file saved as .xlsx format “Meat_and_Bone_Meals_Fertilizers.xlxs” with the following sheets:
o	“ATR-FTIR data”
o	“TG data”
o	“DTA data”
o	“CO2 release data”
o	“proteolytic activity data”
o	“N release data”
o	“P available data”
•	1 README file “Meat_and_Bone_Meals_Fertilizers_README.rtf” saved as .rtf 

Data set Documentation
Abstract

The dataset was produced along a study in which two different alkaline thermo-baric hydrolysis protocols were applied to a meat and bone meal (MBM) fertilizer, obtaining two more products with different degrees of hydrolysis. The fertilizers were first characterized for their main physico-chemical properties and their degree of hydrolysis, then incubated into a model soil to evaluate the mineralization of organic carbon and the availability of nitrogen and phosphorus. 

Content of the file:  The sheets “CO2 release data”, “proteolytic activity data”, “N release data” and “P available data” contain the data acquired weekly during the incubation. In the sheets “ATR-FTIR data”, “TG data” and “DTA data” are reported the data relative to the characterization of the matrices tested, and the data point were used to draw the spectra

Glossary:

MBM	Meat and bone meals	
HMBM-L	Hydrolysed meat and bone meals (low hydrolysis degree)	
HMBM-H	Hydrolysed meat and bone meals (high hydrolysis degree)	
ATR-FTIR	Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy	
TG	Termogravimetry	
DTA	Differential thermal analysis	

Methodologies
The products tested in this trial had the physico-chemical characteristics reported in the following tables. The three products were further characterized with ATR-FTIR spectroscopy using a Tensor 27 (Bruker Corporation, Billerica, USA) and spectra were processed using OPUS 6.5 software (Bruker, Karlsruhe, Germany). Afterwards, the thermogravimetric profiles of the products were analysed through TG and DTA techniques using a TG–DTA SETARAM 92B instrument (Setaram, Caluire-et-Cuire, France) managed by Setsoft2000 software (Setaram, Caluire-et-Cuire, France). These techniques were used to evidence their different degree of hydrolysis in terms of molecular composition and thermal stability. Afterwards, a soil incubation trial was set. A calcareous sandy soil was chosen and pots with soils were divided into two parallel sets of incubations: the first dedicated to organic C mineralisation (analysed through the soil respiration rate measurement), which experiment lasted 21 days, and the second to organic i) N mineralisation (ammonium and nitrate release and protease enzymatic activity) amd ii) P availability (available P release), which lasted 105 days.

Sample	Description	
MBM	Meat and bone meal, as received	
HMBM-L	MBM hydrolysed in 3% Na2CO3 at 5 bar for 20 minutes (158 ± 3 °C)	
HMBM-H	MBM hydrolysed in 3% Na2CO3 at 7 bar for 20 minutes (170 ± 3 °C)	

Parameters	Unit	MBM	HMBM-L	HMBM-H	
Moisture	% fw	3.55	3.92	4.23	
Ashes	% dw	34.3	35.0	36.8	
Volatile solids	% dw	65.7	65.0	63.2	
pH (CaCl2)		6.6	7.7	8.4	
Electrical Conductivity (EC)	dS m-1	3.45	3.67	4.51	
Total Organic C (TOC)	% dw	40.4	39.5	39.1	
Total N (TN)	% dw	7.71	7.63	7.57	
Ammonium-N	% dw	0.16	0.16	0.22	
Nitrate-N	% dw	<0.01	<0.01	<0.01	
Total Organic N (TON)	% dw	7.56	7.47	7.35	
C/N ratio		5.2	5.1	5.2	
Total P	% dw	5.88	5.79	5.75	
Ammonium Citrate-soluble P	% dw	1.81	1.97	2.75	
Water-soluble P	% dw	0.186	0.156	0.155	
C/P ratio		6.9	6.8	6.8	
N/P ratio		1.3	1.3	1.3	
Total S	% dw	0.277	0.288	0.311	
Total K	% dw	0.490	0.558	0.570	
Total Ca	% dw	8.79	8.56	8.45	
Total Mg	% dw	0.196	0.188	0.182	
Total Na	% dw	1.06	1.45	2.12	

Further data listed in the tabular file refer to “Legend” section for their measure units.

Legend

Sheet	Parameter	Description		
				
ATR-FTIR data	WN_cm	wavenumber (cm-1)		
	ATR_MBM	ATR-FTIR intensity (au)		
	ATR_HMBM_L	ATR-FTIR intensity (au)		
	ATR_HMBM_H	ATR-FTIR intensity (au)		
TG Data	FT_product name	furnace temperature (°C)		
	TG_product name	weight loss (%)		
	d_TG_product name	derivative weight loss (% min-1)		
DTA data	FT_product name	furnace temperature (°C)		
	HF_product name	heat flow (mW)		
	HF_product name_mg	heat flow (mW mg-1)		
CO2_release data	trt	treatment	CON = untreated control	
	rpl	reply		
	sampling	sampling number		
	time.h	incubation time (h)		
	Q.resp	quantity of CO2-C released (mg CO2-C kg-1)		
	R.resp	rate of CO2-C released (mg CO2-C kg-1 d-1)		
	Cum.resp	cumulative CO2-C released (mg CO2-C kg-1)		
proteolytic activity data				
	trt	treatment	CON = untreated control	
	rpl	reply		
	time.d	incubation time (d)		
	sampling	sampling number		
	Prot.act	proteolityc activity (mg Tyr h-1 kg-1)		
N release data	trt	Treatment	CON = untreated control	
	rpl	reply		
	time.d	incubation time (d)		
	sampling	sampling number		
	Nitrate	Nitrate released (mg NO3-N kg-1)		
	Ammonium	Ammonium released (mg NH4-N kg-1)		
P available data	trt	treatment	CON = untreated control	
	rpl	reply		
	sampling	sampling number		
	time.d	incubation time (d)		
	P_available	Phosphate available (mg P kg-1)		

Notes

The dataset was elaborated in R environment (R version 4.6.0)

The publication related to the dataset is available in the Journal of Environmental Management at the following link:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.130354