Emerging Technologies for the Treatment of Food Waste

The aim of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive review of the emerging technologies applied in food waste (FW) treatment from the aspect of cascade utilization, i.e., various high-value products derived from FW, fast volume reduction by biodrying, and energy recovery by comanagement of FW and domestic wastewater. Various value-added products can be selectively extracted from the FW matrix through combined biochemical, chemical, or thermal/physical approaches, including biomolecules (sugars, peptides, amino acids, etc.) and calcium-based and carbon-based absorbent materials. The biodrying process can be a promising alternative to treat humid FW at a large volume and high-quality refuse-derived fuel can be harvested. Anaerobic digestion processes often encounter difficulties such as frequent process failure and long retention time of the substrate, thus the feasibility of incorporating FW into domestic wastewater treatment plants via different scenarios is discussed.