Techno-economic and environmental characterization of municipal food waste-to-energy biorefineries: Integrating pathway with compositional dynamics

Ran Li

Renewable Energy, 2024, vol. 223, issue C

Abstract: Unlocking the energy potential of municipal food waste (MFW) is essential for advancing renewable energy development from biomass and for attaining Sustainable Development Goal 7 which aims to promote the use of clean and renewable energy, and improve energy access globally. This requires establishing waste-to-energy biorefineries that are economically and environmentally sustainable long-term. In this study, the techno-economic and environmental characteristics of traditional single-product and emerging integrated MFW-to-energy biorefineries in the US, China, and India were examined by integrating the compositional dynamics of waste from these three countries. The results showed that both types of biorefineries exhibited long-term environmental sustainability. However, when considering economic viability, only the integrated biorefinery could be applied in the US and India for renewable energy development. Despite significant improvements in economic viability, the integrated biorefinery remains impractical in China due to the declining proportion of lipids in its MFW. This study contributes to renewable energy development from heterogeneous biomass with a dynamic composition and elucidates the further refinement of the pathway based on compositional dynamics.

Keywords: Biomass; Renewable energy; Municipal food waste valorization; Support vector machine; Techno-economic analysis; Greenhouse gas mitigation potential (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:223:y:2024:i:c:s0960148124001034

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2024.120038

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