Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 5, 2025
Scalable Step-by-Step Approach of Sustainable Bioplastic Production from Food Waste
Published on: July 18, 2025
Optimization of water replacement during leachate recirculation for two-phase food waste anaerobic digestion system
Liwen Luo1, Guneet Kaur1, Jun Zhao1
1Sino-Forest Applied Research Centre for Pearl River Delta Environment, Institute of Bioresource and Agriculture, and Department of Biology, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Abstract:
An integrated two-phase AD with acidogenic off-gas diversion from a leach bed reactor to an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket was developed for improving methane production. However, this system had its own technical limitation such as mass transfer efficiency for solid-state treatment. In order to optimize the mass transfer in this two phase AD system, leachate recirculation with various water replacement rates regulating the total solids contents (TS) at 12.5%, 15%, and 17.5% was aim to investigate its effect on methane generation. The solubilization of food waste was increased with decreasing TS content, while the enzymatic hydrolysis showed the opposite trend. A TS contents of 15% presented the best acidogenic performance with the highest hydrogen yield of 30.3 L H2/kg VSadded, which subsequently resulted in the highest methane production. The present study provides an easy approach to enhance food waste degradation in acidogenic phase and energy conversion in methanogenic phase simultaneously.
