Bioconversion of Food Waste into Biogas
Neonjyoti Bordoloi, Rumi Narzari, Pradyumna K. Choudhury,
and Rupam Kataki
Abstract
Quest for sustainable, economic, and environmentally
viable alternative for commercial fuels has gained
momentum across the world due to the polluting and
fast-depleting characteristics of the conventional fuel
caused by its extensive use. A global shift from conventional fuel to biomass-based biofuels (especially lignocellulosic waste materials) among the researchers has been
observed over the last few years. Hereof, food waste has
emerged as a good source for energy recovery as it is an
established fact by now that a humongous sum of wastes is
generated each year along the different phases of food
supply chain system (agriculture, harvesting, storage,
distribution, consumption, etc.). However, very subtle
attempts have been made to utilize these food wastes as
animal feed, although this strategy is not sufficient enough
to curb the menace of food waste considering its
availability. Scientist in the recent past is considering it
as an alternative feedstock for energy generation. In order
to achieve this goal, scientists have to overcome the hurdle
of economically viable bioconversion technology associated with the conversion of these materials to value-added
products. Some of the technological berries associated
with the utilization of lignocellulosic biomass are: formulation of technically sound pretreatment and bioconversion process. The current chapter intends to provide a
compressive study based on the available pretreatment
methods and the various conversion technologies with
special emphasis to anaerobic digestion for energy
recovery from food waste into biogas.
1 Introduction
Growing concern to tactfully manage global warming due to
increasing release of greenhouse gases into the environment
caused by burning of fossil fuel has led the researchers to
explore economic and environment friendly alternatives.
According to the reports, approximately 2 billion tons of
municipal solid waste (MSW) was produced in 2011 (Amoo
and Fagbenle 2013). Increasing population coupled with
industrialization and urbanization is expected to increase the
amount of MSW production by many folds. According to
the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2009) of the
United Nations report by the year 2050, it is expected to
reach 9.5 billion tons. The major constituent of the MSW
generated comes from food waste, which is nearly about 25–
70% as per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
(IPCC) report (Eggleston et al. 2006). This food waste
amounting 1.3 billion tons is globally generated or wasted
along the various phases of food supply chain viz. production, distribution, marketing, processing, handling, and
consumption annually (Gustavsson et al. 2011). Food waste
can be defined as any material that is appropriate for human
consumption that is lost, degraded or wasted along the food
supply chain. The estimated monetary value of food waste is
roughly about USD$ 1.6 trillion (Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations 2015). According to
FAO report (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the
United Nations 2015), approximately 4.4 Gt of CO 2 eq./year
is released from food waste, which accounts to 8% of the
total global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission. Food
waste can be divided into two broad categories depending on
the stage at which it is generated in the food supply chain i.e.
pre-consumer (production, harvesting, storage, and distribution) and post-consumer wastes (meal preparation and
consumption) (Pfaltzgraff et al. 2013). World’s 10 largest
food waste producing countries are listed in Table 1. It can
be observed from the table that according to the food waste
per capita per year, Australia ranks the first. However, from
N. Bordoloi
Department of Chemistry, Assam Downtown University,
Guwahati, 781068, Assam, India
R. Narzari Á P. K. Choudhury Á R. Kataki (&)
Department of Energy, Tezpur University, Tezpur, 784028,
Assam, India
e-mail: rupamkataki@gmail.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Inamuddin and A. Khan (eds.), Sustainable Bioconversion of Waste to Value Added Products, Advances in Science,
Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61837-7_5
81
Neonjyoti Bordoloi, Rumi Narzari, Pradyumna K. Choudhury,
and Rupam Kataki
Abstract
Quest for sustainable, economic, and environmentally
viable alternative for commercial fuels has gained
momentum across the world due to the polluting and
fast-depleting characteristics of the conventional fuel
caused by its extensive use. A global shift from conventional fuel to biomass-based biofuels (especially lignocellulosic waste materials) among the researchers has been
observed over the last few years. Hereof, food waste has
emerged as a good source for energy recovery as it is an
established fact by now that a humongous sum of wastes is
generated each year along the different phases of food
supply chain system (agriculture, harvesting, storage,
distribution, consumption, etc.). However, very subtle
attempts have been made to utilize these food wastes as
animal feed, although this strategy is not sufficient enough
to curb the menace of food waste considering its
availability. Scientist in the recent past is considering it
as an alternative feedstock for energy generation. In order
to achieve this goal, scientists have to overcome the hurdle
of economically viable bioconversion technology associated with the conversion of these materials to value-added
products. Some of the technological berries associated
with the utilization of lignocellulosic biomass are: formulation of technically sound pretreatment and bioconversion process. The current chapter intends to provide a
compressive study based on the available pretreatment
methods and the various conversion technologies with
special emphasis to anaerobic digestion for energy
recovery from food waste into biogas.
1 Introduction
Growing concern to tactfully manage global warming due to
increasing release of greenhouse gases into the environment
caused by burning of fossil fuel has led the researchers to
explore economic and environment friendly alternatives.
According to the reports, approximately 2 billion tons of
municipal solid waste (MSW) was produced in 2011 (Amoo
and Fagbenle 2013). Increasing population coupled with
industrialization and urbanization is expected to increase the
amount of MSW production by many folds. According to
the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2009) of the
United Nations report by the year 2050, it is expected to
reach 9.5 billion tons. The major constituent of the MSW
generated comes from food waste, which is nearly about 25–
70% as per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
(IPCC) report (Eggleston et al. 2006). This food waste
amounting 1.3 billion tons is globally generated or wasted
along the various phases of food supply chain viz. production, distribution, marketing, processing, handling, and
consumption annually (Gustavsson et al. 2011). Food waste
can be defined as any material that is appropriate for human
consumption that is lost, degraded or wasted along the food
supply chain. The estimated monetary value of food waste is
roughly about USD$ 1.6 trillion (Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations 2015). According to
FAO report (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the
United Nations 2015), approximately 4.4 Gt of CO 2 eq./year
is released from food waste, which accounts to 8% of the
total global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission. Food
waste can be divided into two broad categories depending on
the stage at which it is generated in the food supply chain i.e.
pre-consumer (production, harvesting, storage, and distribution) and post-consumer wastes (meal preparation and
consumption) (Pfaltzgraff et al. 2013). World’s 10 largest
food waste producing countries are listed in Table 1. It can
be observed from the table that according to the food waste
per capita per year, Australia ranks the first. However, from
N. Bordoloi
Department of Chemistry, Assam Downtown University,
Guwahati, 781068, Assam, India
R. Narzari Á P. K. Choudhury Á R. Kataki (&)
Department of Energy, Tezpur University, Tezpur, 784028,
Assam, India
e-mail: rupamkataki@gmail.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Inamuddin and A. Khan (eds.), Sustainable Bioconversion of Waste to Value Added Products, Advances in Science,
Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61837-7_5
81