Utilizations of food waste as an anaerobic digester feedstock

摘要

For many years, anaerobic digestion has been utilized in order to treat the odorous, pathogenic, and dissolved-oxygen-reducing-characteristics of both anthropogenic and livestock effluent waste streams. In addition to this beneficial biological treatment, such digestion provides both methane gas and digestate which serve as a valuable fuel and fertilizer, respectively. However, food waste also has the potential to serve as a useful feedstock for anaerobic digestion due to its high volatile (combustible) solids content and propensity for rapid biodegradation. There are a number of parameters of concern when using food waste for such digestion which increases the operation complexity of digester systems, but if such devices are properly monitored and adjusted, food waste has the potential to serve as a sole feedstock or as part of a dual manure-food waste input; both cases provide an improvement in gas generation production.