engleski

Biodiesel production and composting – sustainable solutions for food waste management

Food makes the majority of municipal solid waste that ends up in landfills, where large amounts of methane are produced. Methane that is released into the atmosphere is harmful to the environment and roughly 30 times more potent as a heat- trapping gas than carbon dioxide. Food waste recycling can reduce emission of methane and other greenhouse gases and help combat climate change. Food waste can be used as raw material in production of animal feed, compost or energy (biodiesel and bioethanol). Composting technologies are an efficient way of managing organic waste as they reduce the volume and weight of the waste by about 50%. Additionally, the product obtained, compost, can be considered as a sustainable. Composting without and with bioaugmentation was investigated in one of our previous studies. Bioaugmentation improved the composting process - conversion of the substrate was achieved earlier compared to the experiment without bioaugmentation. In order to obtain an even more useful product, waste cooking oil was used as a potential substrate for biodiesel production. Following the principles of green production, an enzymatic transesterification process was carried out in a microreactor. Microreactors offer significant advantages over conventional meso- and macroscale reactors, such as a large surface area to volume ratio and intensification of mass and energy transfer combined with short residence times. By integrating biodiesel production and glycerol removal on a microscale, a step forward has been taken towards development of portable factories for biodiesel production.

food waste ; recycling ; composting ; biodiesel

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