Waste into energy conversion technologies and conversion of food wastes into the potential products: a review

ABSTRACT

One third of the food produced globally for human consumption is either lost or wasted every year. These food wastes, if not handled with care, lead to public health problems and environmental pollution. Therefore, converting food wastes into energy or products not only generate revenue gains but also solve waste disposal problems thus helping for environmental sustainability. Though food waste has a high potential of energy recovery, there is not much work done on the conversion of food waste into useful products. In this review article, various conversion technologies such as composting, fermentation, incineration, pyrolysis, gasification and hydrothermal carbonisation, are discussed. The article also provides a comprehensive discussion of primary useful products, which are categorised into solid, liquid and gaseous. The advantages, limitations and potential applications are evaluated. In addition, the future perspectives are presented to maximise the utilisation of food waste as an effective source of bioenergy production.

KEYWORDS:

• Food waste
• composting
• anaerobic digestion
• gasification
• pyrolysis
• hydrothermal carbonisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Jeya Jeevahan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1877-3197

A. Anderson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3386-2355