(397b) Anaerobic Digestion of Food Wastes into Energy and Fertilizer

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been evaluated as one of the most cost-efficient and environmentally friendly biotechnologies for renewable energy production, in the form of heat and power, organic waste management, and recovery of valuable nutrient rich digestate [1]. The latter has the potential to be used as fertilizer for agricultural utilization, landscaping, and soil amelioration since it contains essential nutrients such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) [2]. Digestate is produced from anaerobic degradation of organic wastes, mainly derived from food waste, crops and sewage sludge from wastewater treatment processes. However, the use of digestate has become a crucial challenge due to the limitation of cost and quality for the production of fertilizers as well as the application location. This study examined the optimization of an anaerobic digestion waste-to-energy system for food waste management and conversion of digestate to fertilizers. Following which, how the use of digestate for the cultivation of vegetables was investigated in comparison with chemical fertilizers. The objectives of this study are: 1. to optimize the operational parameters of a distributed anaerobic digestion waste-to-energy system for food waste management. 2. to study the efficiency of various fertilizers extracted from digestate and chemical fertilizers by cultivating green vegetables and comparing the major indexes for the growth of vegetables.