TY - JOUR
T1 - Value Proposition of Untapped Wet Wastes
T2 - Carboxylic Acid Production through Anaerobic Digestion
AU - Bhatt, Arpit H.
AU - Ren, Zhiyong (Jason)
AU - Tao, Ling
N1 - Funding Information:
The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy 's Bioenergy Technologies Office under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The views and opinions of the authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. We appreciate all the editing help from our technical editor. We thank Beau Hoffman and Mark Philbrick of BETO, Meltem Urgun Demirtas of Argonne National Laboratory and Violeta Sanchez I Nogue of NREL for their generous in-depth review and suggestions. We are grateful to Justin Rickard, Dorothy Breazeale, and Julia Laser of NREL for edits to the paper and figures.
Funding Information:
The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Bioenergy Technologies Office under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The views and opinions of the authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. We appreciate all the editing help from our technical editor. We thank Beau Hoffman and Mark Philbrick of BETO, Meltem Urgun Demirtas of Argonne National Laboratory and Violeta Sanchez I Nogue of NREL for their generous in-depth review and suggestions. We are grateful to Justin Rickard, Dorothy Breazeale, and Julia Laser of NREL for edits to the paper and figures. Conceptualization, L.T.; Literature, A.B.; Chemical Process Modeling, A.B. and L.T.; Writing?Original Draft, A.B. and L.T.; Writing?Support, Z.R.; Review & Editing, A.B. L.T. and Z.R.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020
PY - 2020/6/26
Y1 - 2020/6/26
N2 - Although traditional anaerobic digestion (AD) process to produce methane-rich biogas from wet waste is deep-rooted, high carbon footprint and its low value as compared with other renewable sources demand advanced strategies to avoid its production. An emerging conversion pathway to arrest methanogenesis for producing value-added fuels and chemicals instead of biogas is sought as a sustainable alternative. This research provides a comprehensive analysis on current technology development, process challenges, applications, and economics for producing high-value short-chain carboxylic acids from AD of wet wastes. We show that (1) the theoretical energy yields of acids equal or exceed biogas, and (2) the cost of these acids is competitive with those produced from chemical markets, making this economically viable for mass production. With global abundance of wet waste feedstocks, this process of short-chain acid production provides a promising alternative to conventional biogas production technology, while achieving waste management and carbon mitigation goals.
AB - Although traditional anaerobic digestion (AD) process to produce methane-rich biogas from wet waste is deep-rooted, high carbon footprint and its low value as compared with other renewable sources demand advanced strategies to avoid its production. An emerging conversion pathway to arrest methanogenesis for producing value-added fuels and chemicals instead of biogas is sought as a sustainable alternative. This research provides a comprehensive analysis on current technology development, process challenges, applications, and economics for producing high-value short-chain carboxylic acids from AD of wet wastes. We show that (1) the theoretical energy yields of acids equal or exceed biogas, and (2) the cost of these acids is competitive with those produced from chemical markets, making this economically viable for mass production. With global abundance of wet waste feedstocks, this process of short-chain acid production provides a promising alternative to conventional biogas production technology, while achieving waste management and carbon mitigation goals.
KW - Energy Resources
KW - Energy Sustainability
KW - Environmental Chemistry
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086563689&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85086563689&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101221
DO - 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101221
M3 - Review article
C2 - 32563151
AN - SCOPUS:85086563689
SN - 2589-0042
VL - 23
JO - iScience
JF - iScience
IS - 6
M1 - 101221
ER -