Environmental Chemistry Letters
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-022-01555-1
REVIEW PAPER
Electricity production using food waste: a review
Vijayakumar Raja1 · Sayantani Dutta1 · Pramila Murugesan1 · J. A. Moses1 · C. Anandharamakrishnan1
Received: 9 May 2022 / Accepted: 14 December 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Abstract
Conventional treatments of food waste such as incineration, landfilling, and composting require large land areas and induce
contamination in air, soil, and water. Alternatively, the chemical energy stored in food waste could be used for power gen-
eration. Here we review the conversion of food waste into electricity with focus on microbial fuel cells, nanogenerators,
system optimization and scaling up, environmental impact, application to sensors, electricity storage, and other methods of
electricity generation such as electrochemical cells, supercritical water gasification, and thermoelectric systems. We observed
that microbial fuel cells can recover high amounts of energy from food waste while removing 90% of the chemical oxygen
demand. Nanogenerators can convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. Catalyzed electrochemical cells enhance
energy generation with up to 97% conversion of volatile fatty acids. Food waste-derived carbonaceous materials can be
applied for electricity storage in batteries and supercapacitors.
Keywords Food waste · Electricity · Sustainable energy · Microbial fuel cells · Nanogenerators · Electrochemical cells
Introduction management. However, landfill and composting are not suit-
able options for food waste management owing to the limi-
Food waste is created at various stages of food production. tation of the land (Ma et al. 2017), and the possibilities of
Beginning with post-harvest wastes at the farm, processing groundwater contamination (Paritosh et al. 2017). Further,
wastes at the factory, and wastes due to improper storage at incineration and landfilling of food waste rich in organic
the warehouse, the sources are unfortunately many. Accord- matter often lead to the emission of greenhouse gases that
ing to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), can cause severe environmental and human health hazards
931 million tons of food is wasted annually at the retail and (Moult et al. 2018; Nanda and Berruti 2020). The material
consumer level, globally (UNEP 2021). This whopping fig- recycling of accumulated wastes has the potential scope to
ure is approximately 17% of global food production. The eliminate environmental pollutants (Hameed and Al-bon-
Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) data further ayan 2021), green corrosion inhibition in metals (Hameed
reveal that about 13.8% of global food is lost even before 2017; Magni et al. 2020), and several other nonfood appli-
reaching consumers owing to inappropriate processing, cations as well (Hameed et al. 2021; Said 2021). A circular
handling, and storage practices (FAO 2019) in different economy approach to resource recycling could ensure sus-
food sectors (Fig. 1). Conventionally, food waste is handled tainability and provide numerous environmental, economic,
along with municipal solid wastes. Composting, incinera- and societal benefits (Corona et al. 2019). A summary of cir-
tion, and landfill are the primary treatments for solid waste cular pathways possible in a food supply chain is illustrated
in Fig. 2. However, waste conversion for energy recovery is
* C. Anandharamakrishnan
a major challenge in the futuristic circular economy (Saidi
[email protected] et al. 2020).
J. A. Moses
Food waste is irrefutably an unexploited source of renew-
[email protected] able energy. Interestingly, food wastes contain high-energy
components in the form of carbohydrates (300–600 mg/g
1
Computational Modeling and Nanoscale Processing Unit, starch), proteins (60–100 mg/g), lipids (70–300 mg/g)
National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship
and Management - Thanjavur, Ministry of Food Processing
along with vitamins, phosphates, and other carbon-con-
Industries, Government of India, Thanjavur 613005, taining substances (Pham et al. 2015; Leung and Wang
Tamil Nadu, India
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