Solid digestate disposal strategies to reduce the environmental impact and energy consumption of food waste-based biogas systems

Ting Chen; Xiaopeng Qiu; Huajun Feng; Jun Yin; Dongsheng Shen

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124706

Solid digestate disposal strategies to reduce the environmental impact and energy consumption of food waste-based biogas systems

Bioresour Technol. 2021 Apr:325:124706. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124706. Epub 2021 Jan 15.

Authors

Ting Chen¹, Xiaopeng Qiu², Huajun Feng³, Jun Yin³, Dongsheng Shen³

Affiliations

¹ School of Environment Science &Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310012, China; Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Solid Waste Treatment and Recycling, HangZhou 310012, China; Instrumental Analysis Center of Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China. Electronic address: chenting_15@mail.zjgsu.edu.cn.
² Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited of Power China, Hangzhou 311122, China.
³ School of Environment Science &Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310012, China; Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Solid Waste Treatment and Recycling, HangZhou 310012, China; Instrumental Analysis Center of Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China.

PMID: 33485081
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.124706

Abstract

This study examined the environmental impacts and energy consumption of three solid digestate treatment scenarios to quantify their impacts on the entire food waste (FW)-based biogas system: (1) incineration; (2) composting, and; (3) landfill. The results showed that composting had the largest net energy consumption, but least total environmental impact of 57.3 kWh and 8.75 E-03, respectively, whereas landfill showed the opposite pattern. Moreover, there were significant differences (p < 0.05) and relatively high contributions between the digestate treatment subunits among the three scenarios. The most significant contributions of digestate subunits in methods 1-3 to the 100-year global warming potential (GWP₁₀₀) were 70.5%, 52.5%, and 103.4%, respectively. The results indicated that solid digestate treatment had a significant impact, and reasonable disposal of solid digestate could significantly reduce the environmental impacts and energy consumption of the entire FW-based biogas system.

Keywords: Biogas; Energy consumption; Environmental impact; Food waste; Solid digestate.

MeSH terms

Biofuels
Environment
Food
Refuse Disposal*
Solid Waste / analysis
Waste Management*

Substances

Biofuels
Solid Waste