Latar Belakang

Food waste is one of the largest waste stream which treated mainly in landfills, through incineration
and composting. The option “landfill” has been banned in many countries and the incineration, due to
the high moisture content of organic material. Therefore, alternative methods of food waste disposal
are required to replace the more impactful practices to the environment and to human health.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been recognized as an environmental friendly technology to convert the
food waste, as well others organic wastes, in renewable energy in biogas form (Ratanatamskul et al.,
2014). Therefore, the application of anaerobic digestion to treat the food waste could improve the
sustainability of development of countries as well allow to a cleaner production.

Tujuan Penelitian

In the context of biodigestion as a tool to improve energy generation, this research was developed
with the objectives of

(1) Quantifying the production of methane in anaerobic digestion of food wastes of a popular
restaurant, using a prototype anaerobic digester of single phase, with constant temperature and
agitation;

(2) and monitoring the digestion stability.

Metode Penelitian

In this study, food waste served by users and not consumed was used as substrate. Food wastes were
composed of beans, rice, pasta, tubers, vegetables, meats and sausages collected in a popular
restaurant in Cascavel, Paraná State, Brazil. There are no significant differences between food wastes
of the popular restaurants in Brazil.
The start up of the fermentation process used an anaerobic digester effluent supplied with pig farming
effluent of an agricultural cooperative. In the period of data collection, the food was prepared with the
following ratio: 1.125 kg on a wet basis of food waste supplemented with water to a volume of 2.5 L.
The processing time was 40 seconds, shaking within 2000 and 22000 rpm. The pressure of the biogas
stored in the system was measured using a U-tube manometer. The biogas produced daily was stored
in a polyvinyl chloride flask, with a volume of 1.2 m3. While Biogas was measured by a gas meter,
with a minimum flow rate ranging 0.002 and maximum of 2.300 m3 h-1.

The physico-chemical analyzes were performed according to American Public Health

Association - APHA (APHA, 2005): chemical oxygen demand, total and volatile solids, alkalinity,
volatile fatty acids, macro and micronutrients and pH.

After the stabilization in the maximum organic load, with a daily feeding with of 2.5

L.d-1 and HRT of 103 days, the digester was kept in operation for a period of 51 days. In this period,
21 samples were collected on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays

Hasil Penelitian

The operating condition make the process more sustainable, the system found that to facilitate and
expedite the process of the fermentation start up, the monitoring data for stability in the data pre-
collection, should have been obtained with greater frequency and regular feeding was crucial to get
success in this process, resulting in 90% of reduction of volatile solids and 82% in chemical
organic demand, methane production of 0,51 L g.CODc and 0,44 L.g.VSc. This prototype
anaerobic digester showed that is possible as an alternative renewable energy source to convert food
waste into biogas.