State of the art and future concept of food waste fermentation to bioenergy

Food waste (FW) has been a major concern worldwide due to its large amount of production and improper disposal methods. Nevertheless, FW has been considered as a promising feedstock for the production of bioenergy employing the dark fermentation and anaerobic digestion technologies. The production of bioenergy from FW would not only solve the disposal problems of FW but will also help in the reduction of greenhouse gases while replacing the usage of coal, fuel and natural gas. This paper reviews the biotechnological aspects of the FW to bioenergy conversion processes. The first section covers the present available technologies and various process parameters involved in FW to bioenergy production. Next section describes various works reported on combined handling of FW co-digested along with various other substrates for bioenergy generation. Third section reviews the available microbiomes in FW that can be harnessed for bioenergy production. Subsequent section proposes a framework for FW biorefinery to broaden the scope of FW use in bioenergy sector and presents the case studies of pilot-scale operations of FW to bioenergy.