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At least 271 records · Page 15

The new norms of food waste at the curb: Evidence-based policy tools to address benefits and barriers

Highlights: • Pairing social and technical innovations improves organic collection programs. • Supportive infrastructure significantly increases household food waste diversion. • Norm communication increases separation behavior and reduces dropout. •Model predicting-fit best behavior-change tools is partially supported. • Norms are most effective on population perceiving low benefits and barriers. - Abstract: Cities around the world are under increasing political pressure to develop organics collection programs (OCP) to curb the flow of food waste into landfills, reduce the associated greenhouse gases, and generate compost or biogas. While OCPs tend to focus on infrastructure, they often overlook the linchpin role that household behavior change plays in the success of OCPs. The current research used a longitudinal field experiment (n=370) to test both the effectiveness of a new curbside OCP and new social innovations intended to stimulate pro-environmental changes in household behavior. The findings suggest greater participation levels occur by implementing both new supportive infrastructure (i.e., curbside carts and collection services), and innovations that target the social aspects of waste (i.e., communicating social norms of separation). The data also provide an opportunity to test new model for predicting the most efficacious behavior-change interventions based on population profiles. The results provide some support for the model; reducing barriers (i.e., curbside carts and collection) tends to help all population profiles, but norm communication increases participation more for the hypothesized profile than for other sub-groups.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Anaerobic co-digestion of sugarcane press mud with vinasse on methane yield

Highlights: • Press mud and vinasse co-digestion was investigated. •Methane yield during co-digestion was 64% higher to mono-digestion. • Press mud and vinasse co-digestion increased process stability. - Abstract: The conversion efficiency of high solids waste digestion as sugarcane press mud (P) may be limited due to hydrolysis step. The option of co-digestion with vinasse, main liquid waste generated from ethanol production, was investigated under batch regime at mesophilic conditions (37.5 ± 1 °C) and the best mixture was evaluated under semicontinuous regime in stirred-tank reactors. The maximum values for methane yield in batch tests were for V{sub 75}/P{sub 25} and V{sub 50}/P{sub 50} mixtures (on basis of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) percentage added in the mixture), with an average value of 246 N mL CH{sub 4} g{sup −1} COD{sub fed}, which was 13% higher than that of press mud alone. A highest methane production rate of 69.6 N mL CH{sub 4} g{sup −1} COD{sub fed}{sup −1} d{sup −1} was obtained for the mixtureV{sub 75}/P{sub 25}. During the experiment carried out in CSTR reactors, the organic loading rate (OLR) was increased from 0.5 up to 2.2 g VS L{sup −1} d{sup −1}. Methane yields of 365 L CH{sub 4} kg{sup −1} VS and biogas productivities of 1.6 L L{sup −1} were obtained in co-digestion, which was 64% higher in comparison to mono-digestion. The performance of the process in mono-digestion was less stable than in co-digestion, with a significant fall of methane yield to 1.8 kg VS m{sup −3} d{sup −1}, and a partial inhibition of the methanogenic archaeas when the OLR was increased up to 2.2 kg VS m{sup −3} d{sup −1}. The co-digestion of vinasse with press mud is a good option for the treatment of streams at the alcohol-sugar industry.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Cost-effective treatment of swine wastes through recovery of energy and nutrients

Highlights: • Cost-effective swine waste treatment that recovers energy/nutrients was evaluated. • Ion exchange and struvite precipitation were considered for nutrient recovery. • Generally, more than 90% of N, P, and K{sup +} nutrients were recovered. • Life Cycle Cost Analysis was performed, showing significant advantages. - Abstract: Wastes from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are challenging to treat because they are high in organic matter and nutrients. Conventional swine waste treatment options in the U.S., such as uncovered anaerobic lagoons, result in poor effluent quality and greenhouse gas emissions, and implementation of advanced treatment introduces high costs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance and life cycle costs of an alternative system for treating swine CAFO waste, which recovers valuable energy (as biogas) and nutrients (N, P, K{sup +}) as saleable fertilizers. The system uses in-vessel anaerobic digestion (AD) for methane production and solids stabilization, followed by struvite precipitation and ion exchange (IX) onto natural zeolites (chabazite or clinoptilolite) for nutrient recovery. An alternative approach that integrated struvite recovery and IX into a single reactor, termed STRIEX, was also investigated. Pilot- and bench-scale reactor experiments were used to evaluate the performance of each stage in the treatment train. Data from these studies were integrated into a life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) to assess the cost-effectiveness of various process alternatives. Significant improvement in water quality, high methane production, and high nutrient recovery (generally over 90%) were observed with both the AD-struvite-IX process and the AD-STRIEX process. The LCCA showed that the STRIEX system can provide considerable financial savings compared to conventional systems. AD, however, incurs high capital costs compared to conventional anaerobic lagoons and may require larger scales to become financially attractive.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

A spent coffee grounds based biorefinery for the production of biofuels, biopolymers, antioxidants and biocomposites

Highlights: • Spent coffee grounds is used as a resource for the preparation of biofuels and value added products. • In-situ transesterification of spent coffee grounds show high biodiesel yield. • Biopolymer, biosorbent, antioxidant, and biocomposite are obtained from spent coffee grounds. • A biorefinery based on spent coffee grounds will positively impact the biobased economy. • Circular economy concept can be applied to spent coffee grounds valorisation. - Abstract: Spent coffee grounds are composed of lipid, carbohydrates, carbonaceous, and nitrogen containing compounds among others. Using n-hexane and n-hexane/isopropanol mixture highest oil yield was achived during soxhlet extraction of oil from spent coffee grounds. Alternatively, supercritical carbon dioxide can be employed as a green solvent for the extraction of oil. Using advanced chemical and biotechnological methods, spent coffee grounds are converted to various biofuels such as, biodiesel, renewable diesel, bioethanol, bioethers, bio-oil, biochar, and biogas. The in-situ transesterification of spent coffee grounds was carried out in a large scale (4 kg), which led to 80–83% biodiesel yield. In addition, a large number of value added and diversified products viz. polyhydroxyalkanoates, biosorbent, activated carbon, polyol, polyurethane foam, carotenoid, phenolic antioxidants, and green composite are obtained from spent coffee grounds. The principles of circular economy are applied to develop a sustanaible biorefinery based on valorisation of spent coffee grounds.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Life cycle environmental impacts of substituting food wastes for traditional anaerobic digestion feedstocks

Highlights: • Life Cycle Assessment of an industrial anaerobic digestion plant in Northern Ireland. • Demonstration of GHG savings for electricity production by the utilisation of biogas from AD. • Comparison of landfilling of food waste vs food waste utilisation for electricity production through AD. • Analysis based on a full-scale operational biogas/bioenergy facility, using primary data for both plant operation and feedstocks. • Inclusion of the avoided emissions from landfilling of food wastes and substitution of digestate for artificial fertilisers. - Abstract: In this study, life cycle assessment has been used to evaluate life cycle environmental impacts of substituting traditional anaerobic digestion (AD) feedstocks with food wastes. The results have demonstrated the avoided GHG emissions from substituting traditional AD feedstocks with food waste (avoided GHG-eq emissions of 163.33 CO{sub 2}-eq). Additionally, the analysis has included environmental benefits of avoided landfilling of food wastes and digestate use as a substitute for synthetic fertilisers. The analysis of the GHG mitigation benefits of resource management/circular economy policies, namely, the mandating of a ban on the landfilling of food wastes, has demonstrated the very substantial GHG emission reduction that can be achieved by these policy options – 2151.04 kg CO{sub 2} eq per MWh relative to UK Grid. In addition to the reduction in GHG emission, the utilization of food waste for AD instead of landfilling can manage the leakage of nutrients to water resources and eliminate eutrophication impacts which occur, typically as the result of field application. The results emphasise the benefits of using life-cycle thinking to underpin policy development and the implications for this are discussed with a particular focus on the analysis of policy development across the climate, renewable energy, resource management and bioeconomy nexus and recommendations made for future research priorities.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Hydrogen and methane production in a two-stage anaerobic digestion system by co-digestion of food waste, sewage sludge and glycerol

Highlights: • H{sub 2} and CH{sub 4} production was assessed in a two-stage acidogenesis-methanogenesis system. • Addition of glycerol to food waste and sewage sludge increased H{sub 2} and CH{sub 4} yields. • Stable H{sub 2} and CH{sub 4} production and higher energy yield were obtained at 1% glycerol. • The use of 3% glycerol led to process instabilities in the methanogenic phase. • Co-digestion of food waste, sewage sludge and glycerol maximizes energy production. - Abstract: In this study, hydrogen and methane production from co-digestion of food waste (FW), sewage sludge (SS) and raw glycerol (GL) was evaluated in a two-stage acidogenesis-methanogenesis anaerobic system under mesophilic conditions (35 °C). The effect of glycerol addition (1 and 3% v/v) as co-substrate was assessed in ternary mixtures (FW + SS + GL), with the concentration of all substrates kept at 10 g VS/L. Besides contributing to reduce the lag phase of the acidogenic bacterial culture, the presence of GL increased the hydrogen production in all tested conditions and the maximum hydrogen yield was obtained for the FW + SS + 3%GL mixture (179.3 mL H{sub 2}/g VS). On the other hand, the highest methane production (342 mL CH{sub 4}/g VS) was achieved in the test supplemented with 1% GL. At 3% GL, abrupt reductions in the biogas CH{sub 4} content and pH values resulting from instability in methanogenesis process were noticed over the experiment. By taking into account the hydrogen and methane production stages, the highest energy yield (i.e., 15.5 kJ/g VS) was obtained with the ternary mixture containing 1% GL. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate the feasibility of using glycerol as co-substrate to increase the H{sub 2} and CH{sub 4} production efficiency in a two-stage anaerobic co-digestion process, allowing simultaneous treatment of three residues (FW, SS and GL) and energy production.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Environmental assessment of alternative treatment schemes for energy and nutrient recovery from livestock manure

Highlights: • Energy and nutrient recovery from manure was environmentally evaluated. • Direct digestate application is not always feasible. • AD+centrifugation+N-removal was the most environmentally favourable scenario. • N-removal through HRAS+PNA considerably improved the environmental performance. • UF membrane+acidification were needed to improve struvite quantity and quality. - Abstract: The application of livestock manure on agricultural land is being restricted due to its significant content of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N), leading to eutrophication. At the same time, the growing demand for N and P mineral fertilizers is increasing their production costs and causing the depletion of natural phosphate rock deposits. In the present work, seven technologically feasible treatment schemes for energy (biogas) and nutrient recovery (e.g., struvite precipitation) and/or removal (e.g., partial nitritation/anammox) were evaluated from an environmental perspective. In general, while approaches based solely on energy recovery and use of digestate as fertilizer are commonly limited by community regulations, strategies pursuing the generation of high-quality struvite are not environmentally sound alternatives. In contrast, schemes that include further solid/liquid separation of the digestate improved the environmental profile, and their combination with an additional N-removal stage would lead to the most environmental-friendly framework. However, the preferred scenario was identified to be highly dependent on the particular conditions of each site, integrating environmental, social and economic criteria.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Combining anaerobic digestion and hydrothermal liquefaction in the conversion of dairy waste into energy: A techno economic model for New York state

There is increasing global interest and policies being enacted to lower greenhouse gas emissions, especially from the agricultural sector. In the U.S. for example, states with large dairy operations may combine proven manure valorization technologies, such as anaerobic digestion and hydrothermal liquefaction. Sustainable manure treatment would increase the recovery of energy and other useful co-products, namely biogas, biocrude oil and hydro-char as well as lower the environmental impacts. In this study, the economic feasibility of implementing a centralized bioenergy system in New York State was investigated. Here, the feasibility of this transformation depends on many factors, including capital costs, discount rates, and other financing arrangements, electricity selling prices, incentives and farm sizes and locations. For a large-scale implementation in New York State accounting for nearly 50% of the state’s dairy farms, our model of a distributed, hybrid anaerobic/hydrothermal system was shown to treat 590 million liters of wet manure per day, producing 607 million kWh of electricity, 162,000 L of biocrude oil and 117,000 kg of hydro-char per day. Electricity selling price is a critical factor. Increasing the electricity selling price from wholesale ($\$0.06$ /kWh) to retail ($\$0.18$ kWh) increased the net present value from $\$395$ million to $1.5 billion (considering a 40-year project lifetime).

42 ENGINEERING↗

Improved valorization of sewage sludge in the circular economy by anaerobic digestion: Impact of an innovative pretreatment technology

Anaerobic digestion (AD) of sewage sludge shows low carbon conversion efficiency (CCE) due to the poor biodegradability of sewage sludge. Here, the lack of digestibility is specifically linked to the waste-activated sludge (WAS) making up the majority of sewage sludge along with a smaller portion of primary sludge, depending on the wastewater treatment plant configuration. In this study, we examine the Advanced Wet Oxidation & Steam Explosion process (AWOEx) for improving the CCE of digested sewage sludge (DSS) by thermophilic AD. The effect of the pretreatment temperature in the range between 160 and 185 °C at a fixed residence time of 20 min with and without oxygen added at a dosage of 5 % of the organics present was tested. Methane yield improved by 97.92 % to 183.91 ± 4.93 mL/g vS over the untreated DSS (control), whose methane yield was 92.92 ± 9.07 mL/g vS We have demonstrated for the first time that 84 % of the organics in sewage sludge can successfully be transformed into biogas following AWOEx pretreatment, which can contribute significantly to the circular economy instead of greenhouse gas emissions from landfilling.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Environmental life cycle assessment of treatment and management strategies for food waste and sewage sludge

A consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) was utilized to compare the environmental impacts of food waste and sewage sludge management strategies. The strategies included a novel two-phase anaerobic digestion (AD) system and alternatives including landfill, waste-to-energy, composting, anaerobic membrane bioreactor, and conventional AD (wet continuous stirred-tank reactor [CSTR]). The co-management of food waste with sewage sludge was also considered for the two-phase AD system and for a conventional AD reactor. Further, a multidimensional LCA approach was taken, considering the five-midpoint impact categories of global warming, smog, human health particulate, acidification, and eutrophication estimated using the U.S. EPA Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts. Co-management of food waste and sewage sludge using the novel two-phase AD system was shown to maximize energy recovery and had a net global warming benefit while reducing other environmental impacts compared with the alternative management strategies. It had similar relative environmental advantages across all categories as conventional AD, with the advantage of a smaller physical footprint. However, both approaches featured net environmental burdens when the background electric grid intensity fell below 0.25 kg CO 2 -eq kWh -1 , as could be expected in a decarbonized electric future. Upgrading the biogas produced from AD to renewable natural gas can displace the use of fossil natural gas for other non-electricity energy requirements that are difficult to decarbonize and may extend the time period of significant environmental benefits of utilizing AD for organic waste management. Treatment of the nutrient-rich supernatant generated by the novel two-phase AD system could be an obstacle for utilities with stringent nutrient discharge limits. Future research and full-scale implementation are needed to demonstrate the benefits of the two-phase AD system predicted through this analysis.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Triggering the stringent response enhances synthetic methanol utilization in Escherichia coli

Synthetic methylotrophy aims to engineer methane and methanol utilization pathways in platform hosts like Escherichia coli for industrial bioprocessing of natural gas and biogas. While recent attempts to engineer synthetic methylotrophs have proved successful, autonomous methylotrophy, i.e. the ability to utilize methane or methanol as sole carbon and energy substrates, has not yet been realized. Here in this paper, we address an important limitation of autonomous methylotrophy in E. coli: the inability of the organism to synthesize several amino acids when grown on methanol. By activating the stringent/stress response via ppGpp overproduction, or DksA and RpoS overexpression, we demonstrate improved biosynthesis of proteinogenic amino acids via endogenous upregulation of amino acid synthesis pathway genes. Thus, we were able to achieve biosynthesis of several limiting amino acids from methanol-derived carbon, in contrast to the control methylotrophic E. coli strain. This study addresses a key limitation currently preventing autonomous methylotrophy in E. coli and possibly other synthetic methylotrophs and provides insight as to how this limitation can be alleviated via stringent/stress response activation.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Frontiers of Ionic Liquids in Carbon Dioxide Separation and Valorization

Ionic liquids (ILs) have emerged as highly tunable sorbents and membranes for gas separation, especially in the purification of CO 2 -containing gas streams such as air, natural gas, biogas, and syngas. Their negligible volatility, high thermal stability, and chemical versatility position them as promising alternatives to conventional amine and alkaline metal derivative-based systems, effectively addressing key challenges such as volatility, stability, and high regeneration energy. Here, this Review explores IL-derived systems for CO 2 -related gas separation across dense, porous, and supported categories. At the dense liquid level, we discuss strategies for tailoring IL properties to optimize CO 2 sorption, focusing on the correlation between IL-CO 2 interaction strength, uptake capacity, and regeneration energy. Key advancements in carbon capture, including amino-functionalized (AILs) and superbase-derived ILs (SILs), are highlighted, along with strategies such as chemical structure engineering, multiple binding site integration, alternative driving force exploration, and stability enhancement. Then, the porous liquids (PLs) scale focuses on the emerging field integrating IL properties with permanent porosity engineering, spanning ultramicropores (<5 Å) to macropores (around 100 nm). These innovations improve gas uptake capacity, accelerate transport kinetics, introduce the gating effect, and enable the coexistence of active sites with antagonistic properties within a single IL medium. At the supported IL scale, the discussion shifts to IL- and ionic pair-modified sorbents and membranes, emphasizing the modulation of cations and anions, confinement effects from porous supports, and the IL–interface interaction to enhance CO 2 separation performance, particularly in diluted gas streams. Beyond separation, this Review highlights IL-based integrated processes for CO 2 capture and conversion into value-added chemicals via thermocatalytic, electrocatalytic, and photocatalytic pathways. At each scale, advanced computational and experimental tools for IL design are also discussed, providing insights into stability enhancement, sorption efficiency, and process integration. The Review concludes by addressing existing challenges and outlining future directions for IL-driven innovations in gas separation technologies.

Qiu, Liqi [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (Unit↗

Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Human Health Trade-Offs of Organic Waste Management Strategies

Waste-to-energy systems can play an important role in diverting organic waste from landfills. However, real-world waste management can differ from idealized practices, and emissions driven by microbial communities and complex chemical processes are poorly understood. This study presents a comprehensive life-cycle assessment, using reported and measured data, of competing management alternatives for organic municipal solid waste including landfilling, composting, dry anaerobic digestion (AD) for the production of renewable natural gas (RNG), and dry AD with electricity generation. Landfilling is the most greenhouse gas (GHG)-intensive option, emitting nearly 400 kg CO 2e per tonne of organic waste. Composting raw organics resulted in the lowest GHG emissions, at -41 kg CO 2e per tonne of waste, while upgrading biogas to RNG after dry AD resulted in -36 to -2 kg CO 2e per tonne. Monetizing the results based on social costs of carbon and other air pollutant emissions highlights the importance of ground-level NH3 emissions from composting nitrogen-rich organic waste or post-AD solids. However, better characterization of material-specific NH 3 emissions from landfills and land-application of digestate is essential to fully understand the trade-offs between alternatives.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Bioenergy Potential from Food Waste in California

This paper presents the first detailed analysis of monthly food waste generation in California at a county level, and its potential contribution to the state's energy production. Scenarios that rely on excess capacity at existing anaerobic digester (AD) and solid biomass combustion facilities, and alternatives that allow for new facility construction, are developed and modeled. Potential monthly electricity generation from the conversion of gross food waste using a combination of AD and combustion varies from 420 to 700 MW, averaging 530 MW. At least 66% of gross high moisture solids and 23% of gross low moisture solids can be treated using existing county infrastructure, and this fraction increases to 99% of high moisture solids and 55% of low moisture solids if waste can be shipped anywhere within the state. Biogas flaring practices at AD facilities can reduce potential energy production by 10 to 40%.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Accelerating the Deployment of Anaerobic Digestion to Meet Zero Waste Goals

The U.S. places approximately 53% of its total municipal solid waste (MSW) in landfills, but state and local governments across the country are now setting ambitious environmental and waste diversion policies requiring, among other things, diversion and utilization of organics. Municipalities across the U.S. are employing anaerobic digestion (AD) as part of their strategy to divert organic MSW from landfills, produce biogas, and yield other beneficial coproducts such as compost and fertilizer. Furthermore, AD faces many technical, regulatory, and economic barriers to greater deployment, including upstream waste contamination, local odor and air pollution concerns, lengthy siting and permitting processes, and requirements and sizable costs for interconnecting to the electric grid. We identify a combination of scientific, operational, and policy advancements that are needed to address these barriers.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Toward Enhancing Wastewater Treatment with Resource Recovery in Integrated Assessment and Computable General Equilibrium Models

Sustainable water management is essential to increasing water availability and decreasing water pollution. The wastewater sector is expanding globally and beginning to incorporate technologies that recover nutrients from wastewater. Nutrient recovery increases energy consumption but may reduce the demand for nutrients from virgin sources. We estimate the increase in annual global energy consumption (1,100 million GJ) and greenhouse gas emissions (84 million t CO2e) for wastewater treatment in the year 2030 compared to today’s levels to meet sustainable development goals. To capture these trends, integrated assessment and computable general equilibrium models that address the energy-water nexus must evolve. We reviewed 16 of these models to assess how well they capture wastewater treatment plant energy consumption and GHG emissions. Only three models include biogas production from the wastewater organic content. Four explicitly represent energy demand for wastewater treatment, and eight include explicit representation of wastewater treatment plant greenhouse gas emissions. Of those eight models, six models quantify methane emissions from treatment, five include representation of emissions of nitrous oxide, and two include representation of emissions of carbon dioxide. Our review concludes with proposals to improve these models to better capture the energy-water nexus associated with the evolving wastewater treatment sector.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Growing the Bioeconomy through Catalysis: A Review of Recent Advancements in the Production of Fuels and Chemicals from Syngas-Derived Oxygenates

Synthesis gas (syngas), composed primarily of H 2 and CO, can be produced from fossil resources, municipal solid waste, biogas, and terrestrial biomass and can be converted into oxygenated intermediates such as alcohols and aldehydes through both catalytic and biological routes. These oxygenates serve as precursors for the downstream production of fuels and chemicals. However, since these processes all proceed through syngas regardless of the feedstock, renewable resources do not offer any inherent chemical advantage over fossil resources, and the process economics is largely dictated by (i) the spread between feedstock cost and the cost of petroleum (the dominant existing feedstock for fuel and chemical production) and (ii) the conversion efficiency, in terms of both energy and carbon, normalized by capital costs. Thus, lower-cost renewable feedstocks and improved conversion efficiencies combined with policy incentives could enable increased incorporation of biocontent into fuels and chemicals through syngas-derived oxygenates. To that end, this review assesses recent advancements in heterogeneous catalysis for the downstream conversion of syngas-derived oxygenates (i.e., methanol, ethanol/C 2+ alcohols, and aldehydes) to fuels and chemicals, specifically seeking to link how these advancements improve the overall conversion efficiency. In the long term, these catalysis advancements can expand the window of market conditions over which these syngas pathways are economically viable, creating an opportunity to 'piggyback' on existing and future natural gas to liquids installations by cofeeding renewable feedstocks.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗