TY - JOUR
T1 - Anaerobic Codigestion of Food Waste and Polylactic Acid
T2 - Effect of Pretreatment on Methane Yield and Solid Reduction
AU - Hobbs, Shakira R.
AU - Parameswaran, Prathap
AU - Astmann, Barbara
AU - Devkota, Jay P.
AU - Landis, Amy E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Shakira R. Hobbs et al.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Food waste and biopolymers, plastics derived from plants, are unexploited sources of energy when discarded in landfills without energy recovery. In addition, polylactic acid (PLA) and food waste have complimentary characteristics for anaerobic digestion; both are organic and degrade under anaerobic conditions. Lab-scale reactors were set up to quantify the solubilization of pretreated amorphous and crystalline PLA. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) assays were performed to quantify CH4 production from both treated and untreated PLA in the presence of food waste and anaerobic digested sludge. Amorphous and crystalline PLA reached near-complete solubilization at 97% and 99%, respectively, when alkaline pretreatment was applied. The PLA that received alkaline treatment produced the most of CH4 throughout the run time of 70 days. The PLA without treatment resulted in 54% weight reduction after anaerobic digestion. Results from this study show that alkaline pretreatment has the greatest solid reduction of PLA and maximum production of CH4 when combined with food waste and anaerobic digested sludge.
AB - Food waste and biopolymers, plastics derived from plants, are unexploited sources of energy when discarded in landfills without energy recovery. In addition, polylactic acid (PLA) and food waste have complimentary characteristics for anaerobic digestion; both are organic and degrade under anaerobic conditions. Lab-scale reactors were set up to quantify the solubilization of pretreated amorphous and crystalline PLA. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) assays were performed to quantify CH4 production from both treated and untreated PLA in the presence of food waste and anaerobic digested sludge. Amorphous and crystalline PLA reached near-complete solubilization at 97% and 99%, respectively, when alkaline pretreatment was applied. The PLA that received alkaline treatment produced the most of CH4 throughout the run time of 70 days. The PLA without treatment resulted in 54% weight reduction after anaerobic digestion. Results from this study show that alkaline pretreatment has the greatest solid reduction of PLA and maximum production of CH4 when combined with food waste and anaerobic digested sludge.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069791440&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85069791440&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1155/2019/4715904
DO - 10.1155/2019/4715904
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85069791440
SN - 1687-8434
VL - 2019
JO - Advances in Materials Science and Engineering
JF - Advances in Materials Science and Engineering
M1 - 4715904
ER -