Abstract

AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY IN THE USAGE OF FOOD WASTE (ACTUAL AND SIMULATED) FOR VFA PRODUCTION

Anbilvairavan Viswanathan*, Ravi Rajamanickam

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Abstract

This study investigated the characteristics of stimulated food waste and actual food waste as a feed stock for volatile fatty acid (VFA) production. Four type of food waste are taken for study among which couple of them are actual food wastes (FWactual 1 and FWactual 2) and others are stimulated food waste (FWstimulated 1 and FWstimulated 2). FWstimulated 1 was found to have high content of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and lipids compared to other food waste which favors VFA production. These findings indicate that stimulated food waste1 is considered to be a high valuable resource for sustainable VFA production. Batch study are carried out to using stimulated food waste1 for finding out optimum fermentation conditions such as pH, temperature, and Inoculums size which enhanced VFA production. The highest VFA yield of 10223mgCOD/L was achieved at pH 6.5, with a substrate concentration of 15000mgCOD/L and 5% of pure culture (clostridium acetobutyricum) The VFA produced was composed of 25% of acetic acid, 8% of propionic acid, and 53% butyric acid at a temperature of 35°C.

Keywords: Food waste, Acidogenic fermentation, Anaerobic Digestion (AD), Volatile Fatty Acids (VFA).