In this work, the aged refuse (AR) excavated from a typical refuse landfill with over 10 years of placement was used for the enhancement of bio-hydrogen production from food wastes. Firstly, the food wastes taken from a university dining hall were inoculated with sewage sludge (SL pre-treated by 15 min heating at 80 degrees C. It was found that below 0.4% of hydrogen concentration could be detected in the biogas produced due to its severe acidification properties. However, the addition of AR (50% in weight) can considerably increase the hydrogen concentration in the biogas to over 26.6% with pH ascending from 4.36 to 5.81, in comparison with 4-6% using activated carbon as additive with pH descending from 4.43 to 3.91. Meanwhile, it was also found that the hydrogen content in the biogas decreased drastically to 3.3% when the AR was sterilized by heating at 160 degrees C for 2 h and then used as additive for biohydrogen production from food wastes, indicating that the AR may chiefly function as a microbial inoculum instead of a porous material like activated carbon. Statistical analysis showed that the ultimate hydrogen production potential (Hp), hydrogen production rate (R-max) and lag-phase time (gimel) were found to be 193.85 mL/gVS, 94.35 mL/(hgVS), 15.28 h, respectively, in the presence of 50% AR, and the optimal mixing ratios were 100:50 (wet weight) for food wastes to AR and 100:30 (dry weight) for food wastes to sewage SL, respectively. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.