Anaerobic digestion can be an alluring option to strengthen world’s energy security by

employing food waste to generate biogas while addressing waste management and
nutrient recycling.

Food waste mainly consists of carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and traces of inorganic
compounds. e composition varies in accordance with the type of food waste and its
constituents. Food waste consisting of rice and vegetables is abundant in carbohydrates
while food waste consisting of meat and eggs has high quantity of proteins and lipids.
(Kunwar et al., 2017)

Generation of methane via anaerobic process is an appro- priate solution for food waste
management. e process has lesser cost and low residual waste production and utilization
of food waste as renewable source of energy [Nasir, 2012].

Due to high potential for biomethanation, food waste is a reliable and promising substrate
for anaerobic digestion activity.

The composition varies between different substrates and technologies.

Usually the gas from anaerobic digestion of food wastes consists of
70 %–80 % methane, by volume , while the rest is carbon dioxide
(Harikishan, 2008)
Traces of other substances can be found in the gas such as water,
hydrogen sulfide, siloxanes and particles. (Harikishan, 2008). Methane is
the energy carrier in biogas and therefore the so called methane yield is
used to quantify how well a biogas process is working. The methane
yield depends on several factors, but the substrate composition is
probably the most important. Sometimes the term biogas yield is used,
and it usually refers to the amount of gas (CH4 and CO2) that is produced
from the substrate. In table 1 the biogas yields for the main components
in organic waste are listed.
There are no available data on the composition of the food waste in
Singapore. This makes it impossible to calculate the expected methane
yield from the waste. Data from several studies that are dealing with
anaerobic digestion of OFMSW under thermophilic conditions were
recovered. From this data an average methane yield of 0.4 m CH4/kg TS
was calculated.
This methane yield has been used to perform several calculations in the
study. Details about what references the biogas yield is based on, and
further explanation can be found in appendix 1.
The biogas yield that I have chosen to use in my study is an average of
the values in table 35. However, I have chosen not to count in the value
from Del Borghi, since it is the result from digestion of both OFMSW
and sewage sludge and it the article is not very clear on if the value 0.36
m /kg VS is the methane production or the total amount of gas produced
(including CO2). The average value that is used in this study is 0.40 m
/kg TS.
Ref

Kunwar Paritosh, Sandeep K. Kushwaha, Monika Yadav, Nidhi Pareek, Aakash

Chawade, and Vivekanand Vivekanand, “Food Waste to Energy: An Overview of
Sustainable Approaches for Food Waste Management and Nutrient Recycling,” BioMed
Research International, vol. 2017, Article ID 2370927, 19 pages, 2017.
doi:10.1155/2017/2370927

I. M. Nasir, T. I. M. Ghazi, and R. Omar, “Production of biogas from solid organic wastes
through anaerobic digestion: a review,” Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, vol. 95, no. 2,
pp. 321–329, 2012.