Evaluation of Three Feasible Biodegradation Models for Food Waste

Abstract

Food waste is produced from food factories, food services, and home kitchens. The generated mass reached 5.4 million tons/yearin 2020. The basic management technology for such waste has been biological degradation under an anaerobic environment. However, the whole process is intrinsically slow and considerably affected by the inner physicochemical properties of the wasteand other surrounding conditions, which makes optimization of the process difficult. The most promising options to counter thismassive generation of waste are eco-friendly treatments or recycling. As a preliminary step for these options, attempts were madeto evaluate the feasibility and usability of three simulative models based on reaction kinetics. Model (A) predicted relativechanges over reaction time for reactant, intermediate, and product. Overall, an increased reaction rate produced less intermediateand more product, thereby leading to a shorter total reaction time. Particle diminishing model (B) predicted reduction of the totalwaste mass. The smaller particles diminished faster along with the dominant effect of microbial reaction. In Model (C),long-chain cellulose was predicted to transform into reducing sugar. At a standard condition, 48% of cellulose molecules having105repeating units turned into reducing sugar after 100 h. Also it was found that the optimal enzyme concentration where thehighest amount of remnant sugar was harvested was 1 mg L-1