Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

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Journal of Hazardous Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhazmat

Minimizing hazardous impact of food waste in a circular economy –

Advances in resource recovery through green strategies
Zeba Usmani a, 1, Minaxi Sharma a, b, 1, Abhishek Kumar Awasthi c, 1, Gauri Dutt Sharma d,
Denise Cysneiros e, S.Chandra Nayak f, Vijay Kumar Thakur g, Ravi Naidu h, i, Ashok Pandey j, k,
Vijai Kumar Gupta g, l, *
a
Department of Applied Biology, University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya 793101, India
b
Food Technology, Akal College of Agriculture, Eternal University, Baru Sahib, Himachal Pradesh 173101, India
c
School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, PR China
d
University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya 793101, India
e
Future Biogas Limited, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7YD, UK
f
DOS in Biotechnology, University of Mysore Manasagangotri, Mysore, India
g
Biorefining and Advanced Materials Research Center, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK
h
Global Centre for Environmental Remediation (GCER), The University of Newcastle, Faculty of Science, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
i
Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE), The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308,
Australia
j
Centre for Innovation and Translational Research, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow 226 001, India
k
Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability, Lucknow-226 029, India
l
Center for Safe and Improved Food, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Editor: Dr. Rinklebe Jörg Recent trends in food waste and its management have increasingly started to focus on treating it as a reusable
resource. The hazardous impact of food waste such as the release of greenhouse gases, deterioration of water
Keywords: quality and contamination of land areas are a major threat posed by food waste. Under the circular economy
Food waste principles, food waste can be used as a sustainable supply of high-value energy, fuel, and nutrients through green
Resource recovery
techniques such as anaerobic digestion, co-digestion, composting, enzymatic treatment, ultrasonic, hydrothermal
Circular economy
carbonization. Recent advances made in anaerobic co-digestion are helping in tackling dual or even multiple
Biobased valorization
Integrated biotechniques waste streams at once with better product yields. Integrated approaches that employ pre-processing the food
waste to remove obstacles such as volatile fractions, oils and other inhibitory components from the feedstock to
enhance their bioconversion to reduce sugars. Research efforts are also progressing in optimizing the operational
parameters such as temperature, pressure, pH and residence time to enhance further the output of products such
as methane, hydrogen and other platform chemicals such as lactic acid, succinic acid and formic acid. This re­
view brings together some of the recent progress made in the green strategies towards food waste valorization.

1. Introduction opportunities for loss and waste creation. Nearly one-thirds of the total
food produced amounting to 1.3 billion tons is wasted annually across
Food life cycle is the end-to-end process of ‘Farm to Fork’ i.e., from the globe, which could feed nearly half of the global population (FAO,
the farms where it is sown, grown, and harvested or the aqueous systems 2015; Srivastava et al., 2021). The economic value of this waste is
from where it is fished to consumers i.e., humans and animals. Its supply estimated at approximately USD 680 billion. The efficiency of food
chain follows the sequence of handling, storage, processing, distribution production has been estimated at 50% i.e., approximately 1.6 billion
and finally consumption. At every step in this life cycle, there are tons of food raw material is lost or never utilized (Zuckerman, 2020).

* Correspondence to: Biorefining and Advanced Materials Research Center & Center for Safe and Improved Food, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), Kings Buildings,
West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK.
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (V.K. Gupta).
1
Equal contribution

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.126154
Received 30 March 2021; Received in revised form 8 May 2021; Accepted 15 May 2021
Available online 19 May 2021
0304-3894/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Z. Usmani et al. Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

Fig. 1. Food waste recovery hierarchy modelled on the circular economy perspective.

According to a report published by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), hydrothermal carbonization (Idowu et al., 2017), enzymatic pretreat­
rate of food wastage (lost or thrown away) will rise to nearly 2.1 billion ment (Yin et al., 2016), ultrasonic pretreatment (Li et al., 2019a, 2019b)
tons per annum by 2030 (BCG, 2018). It has been observed that devel­ etc. can be beneficial routes to convert food waste into renewable en­
oped nations tend to waste more food, while 842 million people in ergy, fertilizers, source of nutrients. This provides potential economic
economically weaker nations are experiencing hunger problems. Xu benefits such as, reduced expenditure on disposal, landfills and trans­
et al. (2018) reported that food waste in developed countries ranges portation of waste and creation of additional revenue streams from
from 100 to 170 kg per capita per annum, which is more than double to power, heat, biofuels, compost fertilizer and other products.
that generated in developing countries. In the absence of regulatory Carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids are the major constituents of food
policies, it was estimated that food waste in the EU would rise from 89 waste and their ratio varies widely depending on the food source (Kwan
million tonnes per annum to approximately 126 million tonnes by 2020 et al., 2016; 2018; Iris et al., 2018). Since the major fraction of food
(Xu et al., 2018). Oxfam estimated that COVID-19 pandemic has wors­ waste is organic matter, it can be utilized as a sustainable and renewable
ened the hunger crisis and by 2020 end mortality associated with resource to produce biofuels, platform chemicals and other biobased
pandemic induced hunger situation would be approximately 12,000 materials (Lin et al., 2014). For instance, heterotrophic microalgae can
deaths per day (Oxfam, 2020). Wastage of food essentially results in a be grown on food waste hydrolysates which are rich in nutrients bene­
waste of public and private resources, and subsequently implies un­ ficial for microalgae growth (Pleissner et al., 2013), hydrox­
tapped potential in terms of tackling world poverty and hunger. Real­ ymethylfurfural (HMF) can be derived by biobased conversion of
izing this the United Nations adopted sustainable consumption and hydrolysate produced form food waste hydrolysis (Iris et al., 2018). The
production as one of the goals in their 17 Sustainable Development hydrolysis of starch to glucose is an important step in the release of
Goals (SDGs) (UN, 2015). nutrients from food waste, as this often forms the first step towards the
It is of utmost importance that food waste be avoided and mitigated bioconversion of food waste into biofuels and chemicals (Li et al., 2019a,
along every step in the life cycle by all the concerned parties, be it in 2019b).
processing, supply, or sales. However, households can also be a signif­ While some of the biobased techniques have proven to be effective in
icant contributor towards food waste, which requires different strategies the valorization of food waste, most techniques suffer from the draw­
to tackle the problem at the consumption side. Hence, it is imperative to backs of being complex, costly, leaving post-processing residue, and
develop proper management strategies and policies to handle food waste large setup requirement. Thus, there has been a recent push from the
at the end of their life cycle to avoid its hazardous impact on the envi­ research community to develop integrated solutions that bring together
ronment and society. The high transportation costs of waste and limited energy and resource recovery, at a lower price, smaller footprint and
landfill disposal sites have further drawn attention towards efficiently minimum remains. This review provides an insight into some of the
utilizing food waste by sustainable green processes (Lee et al., 2020). advances made in food waste treatment technologies that try to address
One of the ways to this is by adoption of a circular economy that ad­ the emerging demands in the circular economy context. An extensive
vocates the recycle and reuse of seemingly waste materials as the literature survey was performed taking into consideration peer-
feedstock for production of other materials, chemicals, and products reviewed papers published in the last five years or so. Web of Science
(Lee et al., 2020) (Fig. 1). Taking sustainability and greenness into ac­ and Elsevier were used as the databases for this survey as it has one of
count, biobased techniques such as composting, anaerobic digestion the highest indexed information on peer-reviewed journals. The search
(AD) (Oldfield et al., 2016), co-digestion (Gao et al., 2020), terms used for paper search included: (food waste/municipal solid

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Z. Usmani et al. Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

waste/agro-industrial waste) AND (treatment OR valorization OR val­ able to demonstrate the reduction of blue-green water consumption for
orisation OR pretreatment) AND (Anaerobic Digestion OR co-digestion 11 crops by 5% in the US, and for 14 crops globally by 12–14%.
OR enzymatic OR ultrasonic OR sonification OR Hydrothermal Utilization of fertilizers and pesticides and their subsequent runoff
Carbonization OR HTC). Few additional reports from reputed organi­ adversely impact the quality of groundwater as well as surface water
zations were also considered to strengthen the arguments and to sub­ (Chai et al., 2021). While the leachate from landfills and dumpsites
stantiate the implementations of pilot/large-scale plants. This time span contaminates the surface as well as groundwater. Another source of
(2015–2021) was chosen as the focus for the search term to derive pollution is from the production plants that process food materials and
conclusions from most current knowledge around the treatment meth­ then dump the sewage sludge into water bodies and nearby landfill sites.
odologies selected for this review. Overlaps in the results from Web of The food-based processing plants utilize water in most of their steps. For
Science and Elsevier were manually removed. The relevancy of the instance, water is extensively used in washing raw materials and peeled
selected articles was manually judged based on the following criterion: products, blanching, reducing size, cooling and cooking of processed
(a) Focus on studies that dealt with the treatment of both household and items and finally sanitation. This results in a wastewater stream which
industrial food waste (b) research that estimated the environmental Life often contains significant quantities of processing chemicals and pesti­
Cycle Assessment (LCA) of food waste (c) studies that focused on cides (Karas et al., 2016a). Fungicides are also used in huge amounts in
resource recovery and energy generation and (d) co-treatment of food the fruit-packaging process to prevent fruits from going bad during
waste with other waste streams to enhance the overall process effi­ storage (Łozowicka et al., 2016; Karas et al., 2016a, 2016b), which adds
ciency. Also, importance was laid on the articles that provided conclu­ to the chemical content of the wastewater stream as the fruits and
sive data associated with the treatment methodologies under discussion. vegetables are washed before being processed further (Ponce-Robles
This curation process yielded a total of 114 articles and reports which et al., 2017).
were considered in this review.
2.3. Landfill and dumpsites
2. Environmental hazards of food waste
While there have been efforts to adopt circular economy for the reuse
Apart from the fact that food waste results in mismanagement of of food waste, nearly 50% of waste still ends up in landfill sites with
resources (including fertilizers, water, and energy) involved in the economically weaker countries dumping 13–33% of waste in open areas
production of food that did not fulfil its purpose, it also negatively im­ (World Bank, 2020). These dumping sites for food and other organic
pacts the environment through the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs) waste act as the perfect breeding grounds for harmful parasites which
on its degradation, contaminates aqueous systems through seepage and can enter human population causing gastrointestinal diseases (UNEP,
runoff and acts as potential health hazard by serving as a breeding 2015). These dumping sites attract birds, flies, mosquitoes, vermin, and
ground of various pathogens. This section provides a short summary of other communicable disease carriers, exposing health risks to humans
the hazardous impact of food waste on the environment and society. by entering the food chain (ISWA, 2015). In many developing nations, it
is a common practice to let dairy, poultry, and other farm animals to feed
2.1. GHG emissions and climate change off from the food waste dumpsites, resulting in disease causing bacteria
and other parasites to enter humans.
The primary GHGs contributing to climate change due to global
warming include methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), and nitrous 3. Enhanced valorization strategies
oxide (N2O) and are generated at every stage of food production, con­
sumption and disposal: conversion of forest land into agriculture The food waste management strategies prioritise prevention at the
releasing carbon that was sequestered in the biomass; livestock, manures highest level, followed by reuse, recycle and the least preferred option as
and slurries; burning fossil fuels for energy, operation of farm equip­ landfills or incineration. Biowastes generated from food industries are
ment; producing and usage of fertilizers; general heating of premises and rich in fats, lipids and carbohydrates which can be metabolized by
farms; food processing, refrigeration and transportation. Further, the bacteria processing enzymes like proteases, carbohydrases, and lipases
disposal of food waste in landfills releases further gases to the atmo­ (Kumar et al., 2014). The biobased valorization strategies form a key
sphere. It is estimated that the supply chain associated with food waste component of the recycle strategy and many methods have been used to
contributes to nearly 6.8% of global emissions (World Bank, 2016). convert food waste into useful materials, products, and bioenergy. Out
Spurred by the UN SDGs, UK has set a goal to reduce their GHG emis­ of all the methods biobased techniques are most feasible, reliable, and
sions by 40% by 2030, including strategies to reduce food waste (EC, cost-effective. This section will detail out the state of the art of existing
2014). Each tonne of food waste placed into an anaerobic digestion biobased food waste management techniques and progress made in new
setup can save approximately 580 kg CO2 equivalent while producing techniques that aim to improve upon the efficiency of waste recycling on
biogas that can serve as a fuel in many applications (EMAF, 2013). the parameters of complexity, setup size and cost.

2.2. Impact on water footprint 3.1. Advanced anaerobic digestion of food waste

Water is one of the most important ingredients for sustenance of Anaerobic digestion is considered to be economical and
animals and plants. In the absence of adequate rainfall, groundwater, environment-friendly technique and has been used extensively as the
aquifers, rivers, and lakes form important sources of water for irrigation prime method to valorize food waste into useful products (Maroušek
purposes. Both, the growth of food in farms and the wastage of food et al., 2019). It is a multi-step process comprising methods such as
impacts the amount and quality of water available in a region through acetogenesis, acidogenesis, hydrolysis and methanogenesis (Patel et al.,
groundwater seepage and runoff. FAO (2013) estimated that the amount 2021) and involves different bacteria having a wide range of metabolic
of blue water used in the production of food that ends up as waste is activities to produce value added products (Kumar et al., 2014). Patel
nearly 250 billion litres, amounting to more than 1.5 times the volume et al., 2016, 2017 reported anaerobic digestion process to be a
of Dead Sea. It has been estimated that changing the cropping pattern cost-effective process for production of methanol by methanotrophs
itself could reduce blue and green water demand. For instance, Schyns which in turn produces value added products. Dahiya et al. (2018)
and Hoekstra (2014) were able to reduce water footprint of 12 crops by estimated the conversion efficacy of anaerobic digestion at around 50%
67% by strategically relocating their cropping grounds. In another and found that nearly 350 L of CH4 could be produced, by utilizing 1 kg
study, by modifying the cropping patterns, Davis et al. (2017a, b) were of chemical oxygen demand, which could release ~14 kJ of energy that

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Z. Usmani et al. Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

Fig. 2. Anaerobic digestate recycle and reuse pathways.

Table 1
Globally operated anaerobic digestor plant sites with capacity and cost.
Plant Site City/Country Year Utilization Capacity (Tonnes/ Capital Cost (in References
year) USD)

Skrzatusz Wielkopoiska, Poland 2012 Heat and Electricity 33,600 6,200,000 Fab Biogas (2012a, 2012b,
(CHP) 2012c)
Boleszyn Mazury, Poland 2012 Heat and Electricity 43,900 6,200,000 Fab Biogas (2012a, 2012b,
2012c)
Ganser Umwelt Munich, Germany 1997 Electricity 30,500 3,600,000 Bin2Grid (2016a, 2016b)
Finsterwalkder Umwelttechnik Bernau, Germany 2000 Electricity 6000 1,700,000 Bin2Grid (2016a, 2016b)
AVA Augsburg, Germany 2013 Biomethane to grid 55,000 20,000,000 Bin2Grid (2016a, 2016b)
Biokraft Hartberg, Austria 2004 Heat and Electricity 7,000 2,400,000 Bin2Grid (2016a, 2016b)
Grossfurtner St. Martin, Austria 2003 Heat and Electricity 10,000 2,100,000 Fab Biogas (2012a, 2012b,
2012c)
UW-Oshkosh Urban dry digester, Wisconsin, USA 2011 Heat and Electricity 10,000 4,700,000 American Biogas Council
Oshkosh (2016)
Harvest Energy Garde, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, 2014 Heat and Electricity 130,000 30,000,000 American Biogas Council
USA (2014)
Elgen fruit juices, Grabouw Western Cape, South 2013 Heat and Electricity 20,000 1,600,000 Green Cape (2017)
Africa
New Horizons Energy Athlone, Capetown 2017 Biomethane 200,000 30,000,000 Green Cape (2017)

can generate 3.9 kWh electricity. But it has also been reported that the production volume in anaerobic digestors ranges from 350 to 750
continuous thermophilic process of anaerobic digestion on food waste Nm3/Mg VS (Di Maria et al., 2016). The second component is digestate,
poses several technical and economic drawbacks (Xu et al., 2018). It has which is a stable material that can either be used as-is or separated into
been found that the presence of large quantities of volatile fatty acids in its liquid and solid components (Fig. 2) to be used further (Nayal et al.,
conjunction with available nitrogen reduces buffer capacity, causes 2016; Evangelisti et al., 2017). The as-is digestate has been utilized
foaming and overall makes the process instable (Xu et al., 2018). Food extensively as soil amendment or fertilizer, while the separated fractions
waste is generally rich in fats and oils that provide additional energy to can be reutilized within the processing plant for other purposes (Nayal
anaerobic biota, thus escalating biogas outputs (Wiater and Horysz, et al., 2016). While the digestate may replace commercially available
2017). Anaerobic digestion of excessive content lipids and proteins at fertilizers, its usage is permitted for crop fertilization under various
higher temperature and pH has also been found to release higher legislations in many countries such as Italy and UK (Evangelisti et al.,
amounts of sulfide and ammonia it which inhibits the overall digestion 2017). Few of the commercially deployed anaerobic digestor plants
process (Hecht and Griehl, 2009). This places food waste feedstock in across the globe have been mentioned in Table 1. While they have been
the category of energy-rich, biodegradable, but irrepressible (Zhang under operation for many years and rely on traditional method of
et al., 2014). The process parameters and operational conditions can be digestion, there are several advances that have been made in recent
tuned by adding other agricultural waste streams such as straw and years to find new methods that can enhance their performance.
maize silage to food waste (Hijazi et al., 2016). But these added waste A point to note is that digestion of food waste anaerobically is seri­
components degrade at a slow rate, prolonging the hydraulic retention ously hampered by the high biodegradability of its components and low
times, reducing economic performance, and impact the overall process C/N ratio (Jabeen et al., 2015). A way to tackle this to deploy a
stability (Kovacova et al., 2019; Udell et al., 2019). co-digestion system by mixing different substrates such as cellulosic
The major outputs from anaerobic digestion process are biogas and waste, sludge, wastewater etc. with food waste to balance the C/N ratio.
nutrient rich digestate. The primary components in biogas are CH4, CO2 Another emerging trend has been the application of microalgae and
with some amounts of H2, CO and H2S. The proportion of the CH4 and macroalgae to raise the C/N ratio adding buffer capacity to create a
CO2 present in the released biogas varies widely depending upon the stable pH which usually declines due to the hydrolysis of food waste.
food waste composition and source as well as the operational parameter Capson-Tojo et al. (2017) studied anaerobic co-digestion using a batch
of the plant. In general, the CH4 concentration ranges from 60% to 65% dry system at various inoculum-to-substrate ratio loads to investigate
(Woon et al., 2016; Di Maria et al., 2016). On an average, the biogas the impact of initial substrate loading on its performance. They found

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Z. Usmani et al. Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

methane production to kick off at an inoculum-to-substrate ratio of 4:1. cropping and agricultural processing, and anaerobic digester for effi­
Food waste co-digestion with rice husk performed by Jabeen et al. cient and cost-effective utilization of biogas. They further carried out the
(2015) indicated that the system became stable at an organic loading environmental and energy assessment of a SIOBS in China focussing
rate (OLR) of 5–6 kg-VS/m3d with 82% volatile solid (VS) removal. majorly on production of energy. Their major goals were set up to bring
Microalgae has also emerged as an interesting substrate for the co- forward the environmental and energy performance for widespread
digestion of food waste and is being studied extensively (Du et al., usage of biogas and its digestate at household level through different
2019; Zhen et al., 2016; Kim and Kang, 2015). Admixing algal biomass pathways. They observed that GHG emissions reduction can be achieved
and raw sludge with food waste in 1:1:1 ratio increased the C/N ratio to through utilization of biogas and its digestate in energy production.
7 and displayed significant improvement in the performance of anaer­ Franchetti et al. (2013) performed LCA to compare the energy,
obic digestion systems in the production of methane (Kim and Kang, economic and environmental implications related to food waste disposal
2015). By mixing Spirulina platensis as a co-substrate with sludge and treatment by various options: (i) landfill disposal, (ii) single stage
food waste, Du et al. (2019) achieved an improvement in methane anaerobic digestion (iii) two-stage anaerobic digestion system involving
production in the range of 5–15%. Anaerobic digestion of Scenedesmus pretreatment with ultrasound, (iv) hydrogenesis (acidogenic and ther­
sp. and Chlorella sp. with food waste increased the methane production mophilic (v) stabilisation of long-term food waste digestion. Their study
by nearly 5 times to 639.8 ± 1.3 mL/g VSadded. Addition of appropriate reported that scenarios iii, iv and v presented better environmental and
substrates in the co-digestion of food waste can significantly improve the economical performance compared to landfilling. They observed sce­
methane production due to the synergistic impact of moisture regula­ nario iii to be most efficient system for GHG emissions and cost. How­
tion, nutrient balance, and remediation of toxic chemicals in the ever, this scenario generated lower amount of energy as compared to
digestate (Du et al., 2019; Capson-Tojo et al., 2017; Zhen et al., 2016). scenario iv. Their LCA study concluded that organic waste to energy
Using a two-stage biological membrane setup under high pressure, Li systems is less preferrable than landfilling due to GHG emissions, cost,
et al. (2017a, b) demonstrated the impact of pressure on the methane and energy. Chen et al. (2015) studied about the co-digestion of dairy
quality and yield, achieving best methane output at 0.3 MPa pressure. manure with food waste and concluded that co-digestion poses less
Another two-phase anaerobic digestion method developed by Wu et al. environmental problems than the control system (anaerobic digestion)
(2016) used a two-reactor setup with the first reactor operating at an with respect to eutrophication, global warming and smog thus, consid­
unregulated pH 4.0, prominently yielding lactate, and then degrading ering it a good option for mitigation of environmental impact. The food
the effluent in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor to waste management system and its working strategy was validated by
produce methane. In another three-stage system developed by Wu et al. Chiu et al. (2016) in Macau through assessment of energy and envi­
(2015a, b) each step in the digestion of the food waste viz. saccharifi­ ronmental aspects of co-digestion, incineration, and anaerobic digestion
cation, fermentation, and methane formation, was conducted in sepa­ of sewage sludge and food waste. The reported co-digestion to be the
rate containers. This system enhanced the food waste decomposition most preferred option in Macau for wastes treatment as it generates the
rate by 27.5%, reduced operational energy requirement by 51.8%, and highest energy and lowest environmental issue. Mondello et al. (2017)
increased total energy output by 17.6%. Another three-stage anaerobic investigated different scenarios for treatment and disposal of food waste
digestion system developed by Zhang et al. (2017a, 2017b, 2017c) fractions taking options such as anaerobic digestion, composting, land­
deployed three independent chambers for hydrolysis, acidification, and filling and incineration into consideration. They observed the anaerobic
methanogenesis. This system was able to enhance the methane output digestion showed lowest environmental impact while, incineration and
anywhere between 24% and 54% when compared against single-stage or landfilling were environmentally harmful techniques. In UK and Italy,
two-stage anaerobic digestion systems. These processes have demon­ the environmental impacts related to different methods of converting
strated the superior performance of the three-stage and two-stage sys­ biomethane produced by anaerobic digestion of FW into heat and power
tems making them excellent candidates for practical application to for consumption into housing communities. They observed technologies
reduce overall cost of the digestion process with enhanced energy effi­ like micro gas turbine, stirling engine and fuel cells and found fuel cells
ciency and increased energy outputs. to be the most environmentally friendly technique. Despite several
Anaerobic digestion brings forward many advantages towards environmental advantages anaerobic digestion systems still act as
achieving environmental sustainability goals. Energy generated from problematic as they cause heavy vehicle traffic and release aerosols and
the plants can be used either to supplement the energy demands of the odours thus, affecting human and environment health (Righi et al.,
processing plant or the surplus can be fed back into the grid bringing 2013). These challenges could be overcome by focusing on building
down the overall cost of operations for the plant. The biogas generated smaller facilities rather than medium, large and centralized ones. An
can supply the local demands for natural gas and the heat generated can LCA of anaerobic digestion by Righi et al. (2013) to study these chal­
be rerouted into the plant for central heating purposes. The utilization of lenges for co-digestion of food waste with sewage sludge (dewatered) in
the biogas generated through anaerobic digestion is an excellent route small scale plants demonstrated co-digestion as a beneficial option for
for the reduction of greenhouse gases. The reutilization of organic food waste treatment as opposed to direct composting and landfilling.
matter and nutrients in the digestate of anaerobic digestate returns them
into the soil thus contributing to sustainable utilization of soil and 3.2. Integrated approaches for food waste valorization
replenishing essential nutrients.
While food waste poses advantages as a feedstock for biomethane
3.1.1. Environmental assessment of anaerobic digestion for energy recovery and fertilizer production, the presence of recalcitrant organic com­
Anaerobic digestion is the major technique behind the food waste- pounds and its complex composition, makes its direct aerobic or
based biogas plants. These biogas systems comprise different systems anaerobic digestion inefficient (Ma et al., 2018). Due to the low hy­
that are mainly associated with (i) pretreatment of food waste, (ii) drolysis efficiency of the VS in food waste, it is estimated that only about
production of biogas (iii) management of digested substrate (iv) biogas 40–60% anaerobic bioconversion to methane takes place (Zhang et al.,
conversion into energy (v) Energy utilization (Jin et al., 2015). Thus, 2014). This has led to a slew of developments in the utilization of various
sub-system level life cycle assessment (LCA) is necessary to ensure the pretreatment methods such as mechanical extrusion, biological, chem­
environmental sustainability of the energy plant. Several different ical, thermal and ultrasonic to maximize the hydrolysis efficiency VS in
modes for the utilization of biogas were established worldwide for food waste before being subjected to anaerobic or aerobic digestion
linking the production of biogas with agriculture. Chen et al. (2012) (Ravindran and Jaiswal, 2016). The aim of such integrated processes is
reported about South China adopting a six-component biogas system to achieve zero solid waste discharges i.e., fully utilizing the food waste
(SIOBS) with fruit cultivation, pig breeding, growing vegetables, stream to produce various products. While the current food waste

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Fig. 3. An integrated multi-step enzymatic valorization of food waste. This process enables the maximum utilization of the food waste, separating the outputs of
every stage into various fractions and utilizing multiple valorization techniques to convert them into products such as biomethane, HMF and other polymers.

Table 2
Enzymatic pretreatment of food waste to produce value-added products.
Enzyme Dose of Enzyme (concentration) pH Temperature Duration of Other conditions Hydrolysis Resultant References
Hydrolysis

Lipase 0.67–1% 7.0 40–50 ºC 24 h – 42.7 g/L of Long chain fatty Meng et al. (2017)
acids
1% 7.4–7.6 40 ºC 24 h – 12.5 g/L total fatty acids Meng et al. (2015)
Carbohydrase Amyloglucosidase- 72 U/g and 5.5 55 ºC – 100 rpm 45.3 g/L of reducing sugar Li et al. (2017c)
α-Amylase-18 U/g
32 U/g-glucoamylase and 32 U/g- – 55 ºC 8h – 52% reduction in volatile Zhang et al.(2020)
α-amylase solids
Glucoamylase-120 U/g, α-amylase- 4.5 55 ºC 24 h 1:1- Solid to 120 g/L of glucose Sun et al. (2014)
10 U/g Liquid ratio
Cellulases and β-glucosidase in the 5 50 ºC 8h 9:11- Solid to – Matsakas et al.
ratio: 5:1 liquid ratio (2014)
Concentration of glucoamylase – 50 ºC 18 h 150 rpm 69.8 g/L of Glucose Li et al. (2019a,
0.1% 2019b)
Protease 0.25% concentration of protease 4.5 59 ºC 24 h 1.92 g/L of free amino acids Demichelis et al.
(2017)
150 U/g of protease load 4.5 55 ºC 24 h 1:1- Solid to 3 g/L of free amino acids Sun et al. (2014)
Liquid ratio
0.4% concentration of protease 4.5 50 ºC 24 h 150 rpm 39% reduction in volatile Moon and Song
suspended solids (2011)

management techniques do not warrant such an outcome, there is a biomethane production and also potentially lead to zero-solid discharge.
growing demand for innovative integrated biological processes that can Demichelis et al. (2017) performed separate enzymatic hydrolysis
concurrently recover nutrients (e.g., macronutrients such as nitrogen, and fermentation (SHF) of food waste using Streptococcus sp. to produce
potassium, phosphorus as well as trace nutrients such as magnesium, biogas (via anaerobic digestion of solid component) and lactic acid (via
sodium and calcium) and produce energy (e.g., methane, biogas and fermentation of liquid fraction). Biogas can be further used for methanol
bioenergy). production using immobilized co-cultures of methanotrophs (Patel
et al., 2018a, 2018b). In another experiment, Pleissner et al. (2017) used
3.2.1. Enzymatic pretreatment with anaerobic digestion simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) on mixed food
Enzymatic pretreatment of food waste is a green technique which waste using Streptococcus sp. They found that an increase in
does not require highly specialized setup and does not result in sec­ solid-to-liquid ratio of food waste increased the lactic acid generation.
ondary pollution (Meng et al., 2017). Yin et al. (2016), utilized a fungal Iris et al. (2018) conducted an experiment on the enzymatic hydrolysis
mash grown from Aspergillus awamori to enzymatically hydrolyse food of food and beverage waste to produce hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) as
waste admixed with activated sludge before subjecting the mixture to the end-product. They used glucoamylase and sucrase as the enzymes to
anaerobic digestion. This process enhanced the biomethane yield by produce glucose, which underwent further isomerization into fructose
nearly 2.5 times over untreated activated sludge. In another experiment and eventually converted into HMF. Addition of lipases has also been
by Ma et al. (2017), ultra-fast enzymatic hydrolysis of food waste was shown to be effective in removing floatable grease from food waste, thus
performed for 8 h using a fungal mash followed by anaerobic digestion. enhancing its digestibility in the subsequent anaerobic digestion (Meng
Following a solid-liquid separation, the solid component was directly et al., 2017). Table 2 presents the use of different classes of enzymes such
utilized as a fertilizer, whereas the liquid fraction was fed into anaerobic as carbohydrase, lipase, and protease for the pretreatment of food wastes
digestor to produce biomethane. This two-step process left no solid to yield value added products and in the reduction of volatile suspended
discharge at completion and 1 ton of food waste would yield biomethane solids.
to produce power equivalent of 210 kWh. A general approach to inte­ These approaches build upon circular economy principles and are
grated enzymatic hydrolysis is demonstrated in Fig. 3, which brings beneficial to establish a biorefinery for food waste valorization into
together the idea of creating multi-step processes to enable higher useful chemicals such as lactic acid and HMF. Combining enzymatic

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Z. Usmani et al. Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

pretreatment with anaerobic digestion enhances the production of the Table 3

end-products from anaerobic digestion. Immobilized enzymes can be Breakdown of nutrient composition in food waste digestate (WRAP, 2016).
used as a pretreatment method as they not only improve efficiency and pH 8.3
stability (physiochemical and thermal), but also improve the
Nutrient Content (kg/tonne of fresh waste)
environment-friendliness and cost-efficiency of the overall process when Dry matter 3.3
compared against traditionally used chemical pretreatments and cata­ Nitrogen 5.4
lysts. Higher thermal stability of the enzymes allows for their sustained Potassium (K2O) 1.9
performance in the anaerobic digestion stages, improving the process Phosphorus (P2O5) 0.8
Calcium 1.2
efficiency. Sulphur (SO3) 0.62
Magnesium (MgO) 0.14
3.2.2. Ultrasonic pretreatment with enzymatic hydrolysis
Ultrasonic frequencies are sound waves that exceed 20 kHz in fre­
quency and travel in a media as a series of compressions and rarefac­ (Mofijur et al., 2020).
tions. These waves are responsible for releasing a huge amount of energy Overall, ultrasonic treatment can be a useful technology given its
through cavitation, a process in which air bubbles expand and implode green nature and overall significant positive impact on the production of
in the areas of rarefactions (Gonzalez-Fernandez et al., 2015). These reducing sugars from food waste, which can then be successfully fer­
“hot spots” have very high temperatures and pressure which makes ul­ mented into various useful chemicals. The utilization of ultrasonic-
trasonic pretreatment an attractive green method to break down the assisted pretreatment and extraction methods have proven to be more
food waste into easily hydrolysable state thus making further enzymatic energy efficient, reduce the dependence on utilization of harmful
hydrolysis more efficient (Tang and Sivakumar, 2015). The impact of chemicals for extraction and require less time to hydrolyze the food
ultrasonic treatment on food waste can be observed through various waste to produce biogas. These advantages position ultrasonic-assisted
chemical and physical parameters such as soluble chemical oxygen de­ methods as environmentally and economically sustainable.
mand (Li et al., 2016), lignocellulosic content (Ravindran et al., 2017),
cellulose crystallinity and degree of polymerisation (Ma et al., 2021), 3.3. Hydrothermal carbonization for resource recovery
and surface area and particle size (Subhedar and Gogate, 2015), and few
more. While the food waste may not be a feasible resource for direct
Ma et al. (2021) subjected food waste to ultrasonic pretreatment application, they still contain a rather large quantity of underutilized
followed by enzymatic hydrolysis to produce caproic acid. They nutrients that get wasted under the current waste management prac­
observed that the volatile fatty acids (VFAs) were significantly reduced tices. The last decade has been an eventful period for the focus placed on
due to ultrasonic treatment thus enhancing the hydrothermal conver­ thermal conversion of biomass waste into biofuels such as biochar, bio-
sion of lactic acid into caproic acid by nearly two times as compared oil, and biogas (Wang et al., 2018a). Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC)
against untreated waste. They also observed that the fermentation of process is a potential green approach in the resource recovery for nu­
food waste into these acids was dominated by Caproiciproducens bacte­ trients from food waste due to its high applicability to wet streams such
rium which played a major role in breaking down proteins and carbo­ as food waste (Wang et al., 2018b), sewage sludge (Wang et al., 2019),
hydrates. In an analytical model developed by Suresh et al. (2020), it algal biomass (Park et al., 2018) etc. Additionally, the water present in
was demonstrated that ultrasonic treatment of potato waste prior to the food waste serves as the reaction media, thus reducing the overall
enzymatic hydrolysis enhanced the bioethanol yield of the overall pro­ water consumption of the process (Saqib et al., 2019). HTC thermally
cess. On the other hand, Taheri et al. (2021) observed that exposing food converts the wet feedstock into value-added energy-dense hydrochar,
waste to ultrasonic pretreatment did not result in significant release of chemicals and other nutrients (Leng et al., 2020).
free sugars, which could be due to the low cellulose degradation ~38% HTC offers unique advantages over other thermal techniques such as
observed in their process. But, in an earlier experiment Jiang et al. pyrolysis and torrefaction, such as elimination of pre-drying step,
(2015) observed an enhancement in the amount of reducing sugars accelerated reaction speed, moderate reaction settings and lower energy
formed (3.6–4.4 times), indicating that other factors such as VFA for­ requirement (He et al., 2019). At comparatively lower pressure
mation, dissolved COD and lipid concentration might significantly affect (2–10 MPa) and moderate temperature (180–350 ◦ C) settings with
the final reducing sugar formation. In another integrated setup including processing times ranging from 0.5 h to several hours, food waste un­
ultrasonic treatment Li et al. (2019a, 2019b) observed a 10% increase in dergoes hydrolysis, dehydration, decarboxylation, aromatization,
glucose yield of sonically treated kitchen food waste as well as a possible condensation & polymerization to yield solid hydrochar (Yao and Ma,
reduction in enzyme usage and reactor size by 50%. 2018; Guo et al., 2015). These conditions also result in the formation of
Liu et al. (2018) observed the impact of food waste sonication on the subcritical water with lower dielectric constant favouring the dissocia­
production of VFAs and hydrogen production in biogas. They found that tion of biopolymers (Suárez et al., 2020). Economically speaking, the
food waste particle size played an important role in the effect of soni­ elimination of the pre-drying process significantly reduces the amount of
cation and reported larger food particles reacted better to sonication energy required for the overall process, thus reducing the total cost of
pretreatment thus allowing for better yields. They also reported a operations (Pauline and Joseph, 2020). The process efficiency of HTC is
reduction of 50% in the time taken to produce the highest yield of biogas significantly higher when compared to traditional thermal techniques
under optimized conditions when the food waste was pretreated using making it economically attractive (Shen, 2020). Additionally, HTC also
ultrasonic frequencies. The exposure time and energy density of the significantly reduces the production of greenhouse gases during food
ultrasonic frequencies also impacts the biogas yield (Rasapoor et al., waste valorization making it an overall green and sustainable technique
2016). Even in pilot scale digestion setups ultrasonic pretreatment (Wang et al., 2019).
shows promising results, improving the quality and quantity of biogas To develop a suitable strategy for nutrient recovery from food waste
generated in shorter time. Rasapoor et al. (2019) were able to achieve an which has undergone HTC, it is imperative to evaluate the fate of nu­
increase of 80% in the biogas yield by pretreating the food waste with trients. Various studies have tried to evaluate the fate of nutrients such
ultrasonic waves. Recovery of antioxidants from common bean (Pha­ as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for a range of waste streams
seolus vulgaris L.) was shown to enhance by nearly seven times when (Idowu et al., 2017). An example of nutrient content in food waste
compared against solvent based extraction (Yang et al., 2019). Similarly, digestate is presented in Table 3. But there is lack of uniformity in the
ultrasonic-assisted extraction of oils from waste coffee grounds was results achieved thereof due to high dependence of HTC output i.e.,
shown to improve by 13.5% over conventional solvent extraction hydrochar on feedstock properties and composition and, operational

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Z. Usmani et al. Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

Fig. 4. A schematic overview of co-hydrothermal carbonization.

parameters thus making it difficult to define a generalized strategy for subjected the hydrochar to steam gasification to produce hydrogen
various feedstocks. Benavente et al. (2015) evaluated the fate of phos­ (57–59 mol H2/kg hydrochar). HTC of food waste performed by Saqib
phorus and potassium in various food wastes (olive mill waste, canned et al. (2018) demonstrated that higher HTC temperature resulted in
artichokes and orange juice waste) and reported their values between reduced activation energy. Additionally, reaction parameter such as
0% to 33% and 8–32% respectively. Other studies have estimated that residence time and temperature define the properties of the hydrochar
nearly 70–90% of phosphorus present in the hydrochar can be recovered such as heating value and fixed carbon content (Simsir et al., 2017). It
due to formation of crystalline compounds between phosphorus and has also been observed that temperature impacts the tensile strength of
other metals (Huang et al., 2018). The recovery of nitrogen from swine the hydrochar pellets produced. For instance, when HTC temperature
manure hydrochar was estimated by Lang et al. (2019) to be in the range was raised from 200 ◦ C to 250 ◦ C, the tensile strength of the hydrochar
of 52–64%. They also found that nitrogen recovery from hydrochar pellets was reduced which could be attributed to the carbonization of
produced at high HTC temperature was lowered due to faster hydrolysis lignin resulting in lack of proper bonding (Wang et al., 2017b). This was
of organic substances. However, temperature had no impact on the also confirmed by Zhai et al. (2018), who presented that the high protein
presence of phosphorus which sustained a 20% level in the liquid frac­ content and limited lignin content in food waste could not produce a
tion of the HTC process. Wang et al. (2017a) studied the impact of hydrochar that had great mechanical strength as the pellet formation
temperature and pH on the phosphorus content of hydrochar obtained relied on weak bonding between the hydrochar microspheres. Addition
by subjecting sludge to HTC between 200 and 260 ◦ C and found that pH of co-substrates such as molasses and woody waste has been shown to
of feedwater impacted the distribution of phosphorus which ranged increase the mechanical strength of the pellets due to strong binding
from 74% to 94%. Based on the findings of these studies it can be properties induced by their addition (Zhai et al., 2018).
conclusively argued that nutrient content in hydrochar varies with Separating the oils from food waste creates a new stream to generate
feedstock type and reaction conditions. hydrogen from food waste, whereas the remaining digestate and food
While the application of higher temperature during the HTC of food waste can undergo co-HTC with lignocellulosic waste which enhances
waste does increase the possibility of ammonia formation, it has also the operational properties and valorization of food waste into biochar.
shown to significantly improve the production of much stabler nitrogen The hydrochar can further be converted into hydrogen and energy.
forms such as quaternary nitrogen and pyridine in hydrochar (Zhuang An integrated approach towards leveraging HTC in conjunction with
et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018b). Food waste is usually rich in protein other technologies such as dark fermentation and steam gasification
content leading to the possibility of higher amination of nitrogen during makes it an important technique towards scaling direct conversion of
HTC. Addition of a lignocellulosic waste stream to food waste can be of food waste into value-added products (Fig. 4). Additionally, the
value as the HTC of the lignocellulosic components results in feedwater approach of co-HTC serves two purposes – act as a binding material due
containing lactic, acetic and formic acids which can enhance the to introduction of lignin and solve the problem of solid waste manage­
deamination of nitrogen (Kim et al., 2016). This was further explored by ment. The high carbon content of hydrochar and high calorific content
Wang et al. (2017a) who found that hydrolysis and denitrification of similar to lignite make it an excellent alternative to solid fuel (Wang
protein was enhanced due to the acidic feedwater, and at the same time et al., 2018c).
hydrochar carbonization also improved. Addition of woody biomass The ability of HTC to act upon a wide range of food waste substrates
waste to food waste during HTC has also been shown to produce without the need of a pre-drying step makes it an environmentally
hydrochar with improved mechanical strength (Wang et al., 2018a). sustainable process. The process can occur at even lower temperatures
Hence, there is merit in co-HTC of food waste with lignocellulosic waste. (<350 oC) thus reducing the overall energy requirement of the process
Idowu et al. (2017) demonstrated a nitrogen recovery in the range of (Berge et al., 2015). HTC is an effective method to extract nutrients such
89–130% from solid and liquid phases of co-HTC of food waste with as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium from food wastes and food res­
packaging materials. They also found that the liquid-phase of the HTC idues and reduces the need to acquire virgin nutrients from other sources
contained potassium and sodium (>75% of their initial value). such as fertilizers, thus reducing the overall energy requirements asso­
While nutrient recovery is an important aspect, majority application ciated with food production. The energy density of the hydrochar
of HTC is in the production of hydrochar which is energy rich. But generated from HTC has been found to be equivalent to coal, making it
obtaining a high quality hydrochar is highly dependent on the operating an environmentally friendly alternative to the fossil fuel (Pham et al.,
conditions of the HTC process. Akarsu et al. (2019) optimized the 2015; Wang et al., 2018c). An LCA analysis by Berge et al. (2015) on
subcritical water HTC of food waste and its digestate to produce HTC-based hydrochar production and utilization in electricity produc­
hydrochar with properties similar to lignite. They subsequently tion revealed that hydrochar-generated electricity was more

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Z. Usmani et al. Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

Fig. 5. Proposed setup to scale biorefinery for food waste valorization.

environment friendly as opposed to coal-based power generation. These by the microbial communities to release methane and hydrogen,
results indicate that large-scale adoption of HTC on food waste and respectively. Similarly, co-digestion of food waste although being a
subsequent usage in power generation could be a feasible method to promising technique, is highly dependent on the substrate being added.
reduce dependence on fossil-fuel based energy. While generalizations can be made that addition of lignocellulosic
components and sludge does enhance the overall efficiency of the
4. Research gaps and future perspectives digestion process, it is imperative to test these techniques at pilot or
medium scale to understand their economic applicability.
The feasibility of using green and sustainable methods to transform In majority of the biobased techniques microbial communities play a
food waste into valuable products and energy is backed up by the very important role in the degradation of food waste. There have not
development of novel, green and sustainable techniques. However, the been many insights into the correlation between changes in indigenous
scale up of these techniques to industrial size is hampered by operational microbiota of food waste and the release of carbohydrates in during the
challenges such has high cost of food waste collection, chemical char­ initial degradation of the food waste. This is important to study as the
acterization and suitability of process. Moreover, the setup of bio­ effect of these microbes determines the production of methane or
refineries requires a high upfront cost as there are multiple hydrogen. Regulation of the microbial communities thus becomes a
considerations in the setup, design and optimization of operations. Apart necessary part of the valorization process to enhance the production of
from the setup and scale-up challenges, all the valorization techniques methane and hydrogen (Srivastava et al., 2017). HTC technique is thus
pose some challenges. For instance, the anaerobic digestion process is an important avenue that avoids the challenges of dealing with wet
highly dependent on the appropriate growth of bacterial communities, waste. But its dependence on the feedstock lignin content poses a sig­
and their degradation behaviour is driven by several factors, including nificant challenge in producing pellets that can be directly used as fuel
substrate type, competition with native bacterial communities, OLR, sources. This more research is required in co-HTC process that can
operating pH and temperature. Tuning these operational parameters appropriately produce energy-dense hydrochar. Another important
and maintaining degradation conditions varies largely with the food point to consider is the tuning of operational parameters in the HTC
waste being treated. There is also a lack of understanding of the process so as to achieve the desired characteristics on the hydrochar i.e.,
degradation pathways, hence tuning the degradation becomes tedious. making it as energy dense as coal varieties. This requires further analysis
Hence, research focus is required to unearth these interactions and of various types of food waste feedstock and the effect of other processes
metabolic pathways to better develop the pretreatment and valorization such as oil removal and pretreatment on the subsequent HTC process.
methods. Physical parameters such as feedstock particle size is important to
Any valorization technique that aims to convert food waste into improve product recovery through these techniques, as the process ef­
valuable products needs to consider preservation of carbon in the ficiency is largely dependent on the surface area of exposure. It has been
feedstock. Thus, storage and pre-processing of waste feedstock has to be observed that particle size of < 2 mm favours enhanced methane re­
taken into account. One possible way to do that is to freeze the material covery, there is no clear understanding of the optimal particle size that
or completely dry it before storage. An important aspect to consider in improves hydrogen production.
the resource recovery or bioconversion is considering pre-conditioning One way to improve the efficiency of overall process of food waste
of the food waste using additional methods such as ultrasonic, micro­ valorization is to combine multiple techniques that improve upon
wave and other thermal treatments. These require further analysis as it different aspects of the valorization process. A biorefinery concept
has been observed that the outcome of these techniques varies (Fig. 5) that combines enzymatic fermentation with anaerobic digestion
depending on the composition of the feedstock. Integrated methodolo­ has been proposed that aims at achieving zero-waste by breaking down
gies will be a definitive aid in improving the efficiency of processes such each effluent from the previous step into multiple useful products. An
as anaerobic digestion and dark fermentation, as they enable better important strategy to improve the economic feasibility of this setup is to
access to the organic components of the waste that undergo degradation co-locate the food waste processing plant with sewage treatment plants

9
Z. Usmani et al. Journal of Hazardous Materials 416 (2021) 126154

Table 4
GHG emissions reduction by utilizing food waste to produce biogas.
Food waste-based Production of Biogas (m3/wet tonne) Reduction in emissions of Reductions in emissions of GHG used in Reductions in emissions of GHG
feedstock source (US Environmental Protection GHG used in heat (kg CO2) ( electricity (kg CO2e) (International (CO2) used in trucking (Joint
Agency, 2015) NFCC, 2016) Energy Agency, 2017) Research Center, 2013)

Brewery waste 60–100 1919 1862 1896

Abbatoir waste 120–160 2034 1936 1995
Vegetables 50–80 1890 1844 1872
Potatoes 100–120 1976 1899 1946
Mixed Food from 75–140 1872 1896 1942
restaurants and
supermarkets
Cheese ˃600 2920 2499 2753
Bread 400–500 2631 2315 2506
Molasses 450–579 2756 2394 2612

or wastewater treatment facilities (Moreno-Garcia et al., 2017). An Investigation, Supervision, Reviewing.

estimated 26.44 billion kWh of electrical power is possible to be derived
by co-digesting food waste with sewage sludge (Ma et al., 2017a,
Declaration of Competing Interest
2017b). Additionally, each of the solid digestate and liquid fractions are
rich in nutrients (nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus) thus making
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
them an excellent candidate for direct application as soil amendments or
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
for further treatments to extract these nutrients. These co-located sys­
the work reported in this paper.
tems can achieve economies of scale faster than independent plants due
to shared facilities, equipment, and material which keeps the cost of
setup and operations in check. However, the cost of collection, separa­ Acknowledgement
tion and categorization of food waste based on its composition must be
considered while evaluating the circular economy objectives. In addi­ Authors would like to acknowledge the institutional funding sources
supported by the Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), UK for research and
tion, the initial setup costs for trialling the co-located biorefineries and
arriving at optimal operational conditions would be a challenge that development.
needs to be looked at. But the clear advantages of setting up such bio­
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