A review of hydrogen production from food waste through gasification process

Abstract

Food waste has become a major problem in this era and is considered a waste of resources. While food waste is increasing, the energy demand is increasing as well. Producing energy from food waste can be a suitable solution for the two problems. Food waste is rich in nutrients and organic compounds. This composition makes food waste suitable to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen has attracted the attention of researchers these days because of its high ability to produce energy with no side products other than water. Food waste can be converted to hydrogen through a thermochemical process called gasification. Gasification converts biomass into a mixture of combustible gases via partial oxidation under high temperatures. In this review, different types of food waste gasification are explored. The results from recent studies are summarized in tables and compared based on the hydrogen yield and process variables. Incrementing temperature and residence time favored hydrogen production along with decrementing feed concentration. Moreover, the usage of a suitable catalyst has significantly enhanced the hydrogen production. The results have shown that food waste gasification has a promising ability to produce hydrogen, however more studies are required to investigate more on the economic feasibility of the process before commercializing it.