The uncontrolled discharge of large amounts of food waste (FW) causes severe environmental pollution in many countries. Within different possible treatment routes, anaerobic digestion (AD) of FW into biogas, is a proven and effective solution for FW treatment and valorization. The present paper reviews the characteristics of FW, the principles of AD, the process parameters, and two approaches (pretreatment and co-digestion) for enhancing AD of food waste. Among the successive digestion reactions, hydrolysis is considered to be the rate-limiting step. To enhance the performance of AD, several physical, thermo-chemical, biological or combined pretreatments are reviewed. Moreover, a promising way for improving the performance of AD is the co-digestion of FW with other organic substrates, as confirmed by numerous studies, where a higher buffer capacity and an optimum nutrient balance enhance the biogas/methane yields of the co-digestion system.

Reviewing the anaerobic digestion of food waste for biogas production

Pretreatment methods to enhance anaerobic digestion of organic solid waste

Methanosarcina: the rediscovered methanogen for heavy duty biomethanation.

Food waste-to-energy conversion technologies: Current status and future directions

A review on technological options of waste to energy for effective management of municipal solid waste.

Enhanced biomethanation of kitchen waste by different pre-treatments

The effect of three different types of glycerol on the performance of up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors treating potato processing wastewater was investigated. High COD removal efficiencies were obtained in both control and supplemented UASB reactors (around 85%). By adding 2 ml glycerol product per liter of raw wastewater, the biogas production could be increased by 0.74 l biogas ml−1 glycerol product, which leads to energy values in the range of 810–1270 kWhelectric per m3 product. Moreover, a better in-reactor biomass yield was observed for the supplemented UASB reactor (0.012 g VSS g−1 CODremoved) compared to the UASB control (0.002 g VSS g−1 CODremoved), which suggests a positive effect of glycerol on the sludge blanket growth.

Jingxing Ma

Papers

Enhanced biomethanation of kitchen waste by different pre-treatments

Improvement of the anaerobic treatment of potato processing wastewater in a UASB reactor by co-digestion with glycerol

Maximum removal rate of propionic acid as a sole carbon source in UASB reactors and the importance of the macro- and micro-nutrients stimulation.

Enhanced propionic acid degradation (EPAD) system: Proof of principle and feasibility