Page 469 - Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts

Processing food waste for the 19

production of platform chemicals

2
Jayati Trivedi 1,2 , Aman Kumar Bhonsle and Neeraj Atray 1,2
1
CSIR—Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun, India,
2
Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Chennai, India

19.1 Introduction

Rising environmental issues and the volatility of the energy markets has been a
constant motivation for innovations in green chemistry and biotechnology resulting
in the development of processes for renewable alternatives for fuels and chemicals.
Renewable resources and bio-based feedstocks present a sustainable alternative to
petrochemical sources to satisfy modern society’s ever-increasing demand for
energy and chemicals (Wu et al., 2016). In 2004 the US Department of Energy
issued a report which listed 12 chemicals building blocks which are considered as
potential building blocks for the future. According to a recent report, the global
bio-based platform chemicals market accounted for $13.83 billion in 2017 and
more expected to reach $31.56 billion by 2026 growing at a compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6% during the forecast period (Research and Markets Ltd).
Population increase and rise in living standards over the past few decades is
generating a huge amount of food waste. According to recent data, around 2 billion
tons of municipal solid waste is generated every year, which comprises 34% 53%
organic, biodegradable waste. Food waste from households and restaurants is the
main component of the biodegradable portion (Braguglia et al., 2018). As per the
study of Melikoglu et al. (2013), the urban food waste generated in Asian countries
is expected to rise from 278 to 416 million tons per year from 2005 to 2025. India
ranks seventh in overall food wastage, while the Russian Federation tops the list
(Lin et al., 2013). The huge generation of food waste (FW) is severely impacting
the environment majorly due to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs)
(Gustavsson et al., 2011; Amulya et al., 2016). According to RedCorn et al. (2018)
in the United States, food waste constitutes 15% of the solid waste stream by
7
weight and contributes 3.4 3 10 t of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) equivalent emissions
and costs 1.9 billion USD in disposal fees.
The disposal of food waste is carried out traditionally by methods such as
dumping, incineration, composting, and anaerobic digestion. Due to the high mois-
ture content present in the FW methods, such as incineration generate, a lot of
harmful gases and composting leads to release of leachates which makes the pro-
cess environmentally unsafe (Cekmecelioglu et al., 2005). Use of food waste as a

Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818996-2.00019-3
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