Waste-to-Energy: fuelling sustainable wastewater treatment with food waste
This project uses anaerobic co-digestion (AcoD) as a platform technology to transform FOGO (Food Organics Green Organics) into:
i) green renewable energy; and
ii) fertilizer for land application.
Standard anaerobic digestion (AD) is the most widely applied commercial technology within the circular economy. There are currently over 100 full-scale sewage anaerobic digesters within Australia with substantial spare capacity that could be utilised to co-treat FOGO through an advanced process - anaerobic co-digestion. Co-digestion can be applied to create value from food waste, however different operational limits, process risks and cost-benefit factors apply. Understanding these limitations is core to this project, with the principle focus being on scale-up, process integration and optimisation of retrofitted anaerobic codigestion processes within existing infrastructure constraints. The project will lead to direct translation of outcomes within the project life.
Collaborators
Urban Utilities
Funding
Project Outcomes
Immediate adoption of co-digestion at two sites by the project proponents would see approximately 50,000 T of food waste used per annum, with 20% industry adoption seeing 500,000 T of food waste saved from landfill, or near 20% of Australia’s total.
