Anaerobic digestion of food waste for bio-energy production in China and Southeast Asia: A review

Camilla Negri, Marina Ricci, Massimo Zilio, Giuliana D'Imporzano, Wei Qiao, Renjie Dong and Fabrizio Adani

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2020, vol. 133, issue C

Abstract: Rapid economic growth in Asia and especially in China, will lead to a huge increase of food waste (FW) production that is expected to increase by 278–416 million tonnes. Among various waste management practices, anaerobic digestion (AD) is a useful method to transform food waste, producing renewable energy/biofuel and bio-fertilizers. This review aims to investigate some of the key factors in proposing FW for anaerobic digestion, with particular reference to China and South East Asian countries. Food waste shows variable chemical composition and a high content of biodegradable material (carbohydrates, protein and lipid). This composition led to consistent biogas production that was reported, as average for Chinese FW, of 480 ± 88 LCH4 kg−1 VS (n = 42). Since these data are higher than those reported for energy crops (246 ± 36 LCH4 kg−1 VS), this makes FW a good candidate to substitute for energy crops, avoiding food-energy conflicts. FW co-digestion with different substrates improved total bio-methane production (on average), from 268 ± 199 mL g−1 VS to 406 ± 137 mL g−1 VS. Food waste pretreatment, also, seems to be very useful in increasing total biogas production. Physical and thermal treatments were the best, increasing biogas production by 40% and 30%, respectively. Techno-economic evaluation seems to indicate the feasibility of substituting EC with FW for producing biogas and reducing total biomass costs. To achieve this, separate collection sources need to be put into place, assuring high FW quality to promote a Circular Economy approach in FW management.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Biomethane; Biomethane potential; Energy balance; Food waste; Food waste co-digestion; Food waste pre-treatment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032120304299
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:133:y:2020:i:c:s1364032120304299

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2020.110138

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().