Biochar Application in Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste for Inhibition Mitigation and Biogas Production Improvement

The production of large quantities of food waste due to population growth is a serious global issue. Improper management of food waste and the deficiency of appropriate administration approaches have adversely affected the environment and society. Traditional methods of disposal (i.e., landfill) and treatment (i.e., incineration and composting) are not considered efficient for food waste management. Therefore, an efficient and cost-effective alternative is anaerobic digestion (AD), a dual-purpose and mature technology for digesting and converting food waste into renewable energy and valuable chemicals. However, Anaerobic digestion (AD) as an environmentally friendly and widely applied technology still faces some challenges, including low methane productivity, inhibition and instability, unstable operation efficiency, and undesired refractory substances degradation. Biochar, a highly versatile and affordable material that could be produced from organic material carbonization, has recently been recognized as a favorite additive to the AD process to enhance methane production and mitigate inhibition. First, the influence of BC properties on AD performances and their ability to overcome its primary challenges was determined. Then, BC's improving effects on biogas production, the corresponding roles of biochar addition in AD for preventing process instability, and mitigating the main inhibitors were evaluated. Finally, the economic feasibility of biochar application in AD of FW was highlighted. This review article analyzes and discusses more than 160 references (review articles, research papers, international databases, and reports) primarily released in the last five years better to understand BC's role in AD of food waste.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Applied Science

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Windsor

Author dc:creator

• Hosseini, Mehrsa

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rajesh Seth

Contributors dc:contributor

• hossei91@uwindsor.ca

Statement dc:rights

• CC BY-NC-SA Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_CA

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14776/9994

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwindsor.scholaris.ca:20.500.14776/9994