IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v176y2021icp565-578.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decarbonizing university campuses through the production of biogas from food waste: An LCA analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Zhou, Hewen
  • Yang, Qing
  • Gul, Eid
  • Shi, Mengmeng
  • Li, Jiashuo
  • Yang, Minjiao
  • Yang, Haiping
  • Chen, Bin
  • Zhao, Haibo
  • Yan, Yunjun
  • Erdoğan, Güneş
  • Bartocci, Pietro
  • Fantozzi, Francesco

Abstract

The amount of food waste production in China catering industry is approximately 17–18 Mt per year. This sector accounts for about 20% of the total food losses in China. China's National Development and Reform commission has ratified 100 pilot cities in five batches to implement food waste treatment projects. Almost the 80% of these projects is based on anaerobic digestion. So, it is very important to understand clearly which is the environmental impact of these new bioenergy, or waste to energy, chains (especially at a small scale). For this reason, a Life Cycle Assessment case study is presented in this work, based on an anaerobic digestion plant, fed with the non edible food waste produced by 29 canteens, which operate inside the campus of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). The analyzed impacts are: Climate Change, Acidification, Eutrophication, and Photochemical Oxidation. The functional unit is represented by 1 kWh of produced electricity. This work demonstrates that small scale biogas plants can be realized inside big Chinese University campuses and can efficiently reduce the environmental impact of food waste management, especially if the pyrolysis process is coupled to dispose the digestate.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhou, Hewen & Yang, Qing & Gul, Eid & Shi, Mengmeng & Li, Jiashuo & Yang, Minjiao & Yang, Haiping & Chen, Bin & Zhao, Haibo & Yan, Yunjun & Erdoğan, Güneş & Bartocci, Pietro & Fantozzi, Francesco, 2021. "Decarbonizing university campuses through the production of biogas from food waste: An LCA analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 565-578.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:176:y:2021:i:c:p:565-578
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.05.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148121006832
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2021.05.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xu, Changqing & Shi, Wenxiao & Hong, Jinglan & Zhang, Fangfang & Chen, Wei, 2015. "Life cycle assessment of food waste-based biogas generation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 169-177.
    2. Monlau, F. & Francavilla, M. & Sambusiti, C. & Antoniou, N. & Solhy, A. & Libutti, A. & Zabaniotou, A. & Barakat, A. & Monteleone, M., 2016. "Toward a functional integration of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis for a sustainable resource management. Comparison between solid-digestate and its derived pyrochar as soil amendment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 652-662.
    3. Riva, Lorenzo & Nielsen, Henrik Kofoed & Skreiberg, Øyvind & Wang, Liang & Bartocci, Pietro & Barbanera, Marco & Bidini, Gianni & Fantozzi, Francesco, 2019. "Analysis of optimal temperature, pressure and binder quantity for the production of biocarbon pellet to be used as a substitute for coke," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    4. De Clercq, Djavan & Wen, Zongguo & Fan, Fei & Caicedo, Luis, 2016. "Biomethane production potential from restaurant food waste in megacities and project level-bottlenecks: A case study in Beijing," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1676-1685.
    5. Giovanni Mondello & Roberta Salomone & Giuseppe Ioppolo & Giuseppe Saija & Sergio Sparacia & Maria Claudia Lucchetti, 2017. "Comparative LCA of Alternative Scenarios for Waste Treatment: The Case of Food Waste Production by the Mass-Retail Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-18, May.
    6. Qiguo Zhao & Jikun Huang (ed.), 2011. "Agricultural Science & Technology in China: A Roadmap to 2050," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-642-19128-2, November.
    7. Jin, Yiying & Chen, Ting & Chen, Xin & Yu, Zhixin, 2015. "Life-cycle assessment of energy consumption and environmental impact of an integrated food waste-based biogas plant," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 227-236.
    8. Gang Liu, 2014. "Food Losses and Food Waste in China: A First Estimate," OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers 66, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Camila Agner D’Aquino & Bruno Alves Pereira & Tulio Ferreira Sawatani & Samantha Coelho de Moura & Alice Tagima & Júlia Carolina Bevervanso Borba Ferrarese & Samantha Christine Santos & Ildo Luis Saue, 2022. "Biogas Potential from Slums as a Sustainable and Resilient Route for Renewable Energy Diffusion in Urban Areas and Organic Waste Management in Vulnerable Communities in São Paulo," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-10, June.
    2. Amit Kumar Jaglan & Venkata Ravi Sankar Cheela & Mansi Vinaik & Brajesh Dubey, 2022. "Environmental Impact Evaluation of University Integrated Waste Management System in India Using Life Cycle Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-18, July.
    3. Izabela Samson-Bręk & Marlena Owczuk & Anna Matuszewska & Krzysztof Biernat, 2022. "Environmental Assessment of the Life Cycle of Electricity Generation from Biogas in Polish Conditions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-22, August.
    4. González, Ruben & García-Cascallana, José & Gómez, Xiomar, 2023. "Energetic valorization of biogas. A comparison between centralized and decentralized approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    5. Chen, Minzi & Zhang, Shuping & Su, Yinhai & Niu, Xin & Zhu, Shuguang & Liu, Xinzhi, 2022. "Catalytic co-pyrolysis of food waste digestate and corn husk with CaO catalyst for upgrading bio-oil," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 105-114.
    6. Tian, Xueyu & Zhou, Yilun & Morris, Brianna & You, Fengqi, 2022. "Sustainable design of Cornell University campus energy systems toward climate neutrality and 100% renewables," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    7. D'Aquino, Camila A. & Santos, Samantha C. & Sauer, Ildo L., 2022. "Biogas as an alternative source of decentralized bioelectricity for large waste producers: An assessment framework at the University of São Paulo," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PD).
    8. Hollas, C.E. & Bolsan, A.C. & Chini, A. & Venturin, B. & Bonassa, G. & Cândido, D. & Antes, F.G. & Steinmetz, R.L.R. & Prado, N.V. & Kunz, A., 2021. "Effects of swine manure storage time on solid-liquid separation and biogas production: A life-cycle assessment approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bacenetti, Jacopo & Sala, Cesare & Fusi, Alessandra & Fiala, Marco, 2016. "Agricultural anaerobic digestion plants: What LCA studies pointed out and what can be done to make them more environmentally sustainable," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 669-686.
    2. De Clercq, Djavan & Wen, Zongguo & Fei, Fan, 2017. "Economic performance evaluation of bio-waste treatment technology at the facility level," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 178-184.
    3. Tong, Huanhuan & Shen, Ye & Zhang, Jingxin & Wang, Chi-Hwa & Ge, Tian Shu & Tong, Yen Wah, 2018. "A comparative life cycle assessment on four waste-to-energy scenarios for food waste generated in eateries," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 1143-1157.
    4. De Clercq, Djavan & Wen, Zongguo & Gottfried, Oliver & Schmidt, Franziska & Fei, Fan, 2017. "A review of global strategies promoting the conversion of food waste to bioenergy via anaerobic digestion," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 204-221.
    5. Olkis, Christopher & Brandani, Stefano & Santori, Giulio, 2019. "Design and experimental study of a small scale adsorption desalinator," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Daniel Hoehn & María Margallo & Jara Laso & Ana Fernández-Ríos & Israel Ruiz-Salmón & Rubén Aldaco, 2022. "Energy Systems in the Food Supply Chain and in the Food Loss and Waste Valorization Processes: A Systematic Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-15, March.
    7. Sun, Chihe & Xia, Ao & Liao, Qiang & Fu, Qian & Huang, Yun & Zhu, Xun, 2019. "Life-cycle assessment of biohythane production via two-stage anaerobic fermentation from microalgae and food waste," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 395-410.
    8. Roozbeh Feiz & Jonas Ammenberg & Annika Björn & Yufang Guo & Magnus Karlsson & Yonghui Liu & Yuxian Liu & Laura Shizue Moriga Masuda & Alex Enrich-Prast & Harald Rohracher & Kristina Trygg & Sepehr Sh, 2019. "Biogas Potential for Improved Sustainability in Guangzhou, China—A Study Focusing on Food Waste on Xiaoguwei Island," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-25, March.
    9. Ziyao Fan & Huijuan Dong & Yong Geng & Minoru Fujii, 2023. "Life cycle cost–benefit efficiency of food waste treatment technologies in China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 4935-4956, June.
    10. Rajaeifar, Mohammad Ali & Sadeghzadeh Hemayati, Saeed & Tabatabaei, Meisam & Aghbashlo, Mortaza & Mahmoudi, Seyed Bagher, 2019. "A review on beet sugar industry with a focus on implementation of waste-to-energy strategy for power supply," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 423-442.
    11. Pierie, F. & Benders, R.M.J. & Bekkering, J. & van Gemert, W.J.Th. & Moll, H.C., 2016. "Lessons from spatial and environmental assessment of energy potentials for Anaerobic Digestion production systems applied to the Netherlands," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 233-244.
    12. Zhuang, Rui & Wang, Xiaonan & Guo, Miao & Zhao, Yingru & El-Farra, Nael H. & Palazoglu, Ahmet, 2020. "Waste-to-hydrogen: Recycling HCl to produce H2 and Cl2," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    13. Ras Izzati Ismail & Chu Yee Khor & Alina Rahayu Mohamed, 2023. "Pelletization Temperature and Pressure Effects on the Mechanical Properties of Khaya senegalensis Biomass Energy Pellets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-12, May.
    14. Dan Liu & Da Teng & Yan Zhu & Xingde Wang & Hanyang Wang, 2023. "Optimization of Process Parameters for Pellet Production from Corn Stalk Rinds Using Box–Behnken Design," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-20, June.
    15. Delgado, Luciana & Schuster, Monica & Torero, Maximo, 2017. "Reality of Food Losses: A New Measurement Methodology," MPRA Paper 80378, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Marzena Tomaszewska & Beata Bilska & Agnieszka Tul-Krzyszczuk & Danuta Kołożyn-Krajewska, 2021. "Estimation of the Scale of Food Waste in Hotel Food Services—A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, January.
    17. De Clercq, Djavan & Wen, Zongguo & Caicedo, Luis & Cao, Xin & Fan, Fei & Xu, Ruifei, 2017. "Application of DEA and statistical inference to model the determinants of biomethane production efficiency: A case study in south China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 1231-1243.
    18. Wioletta Żukiewicz-Sobczak & Agnieszka Latawiec & Paweł Sobczak & Bernardo Strassburg & Dorota Plewik & Małgorzata Tokarska-Rodak, 2020. "Biochars Originating from Different Biomass and Pyrolysis Process Reveal to Have Different Microbial Characterization: Implications for Practice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-13, February.
    19. Jiang, J.-Q. & Yu, T. & Wang, Z.-H. & Qi, D.-M & Huang, W.-Z, 2018. "Analyzing the Size and Affecting Factors of Household Food Waste in China," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277551, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Carla Gonçalves & Sónia Saraiva & Fernando Nunes & Cristina Saraiva, 2023. "Food Waste in Public Food Service Sector—Surplus and Leftovers," Resources, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-10, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    LCA; Logistics; Food waste; GHG; Biogas; CHP;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:176:y:2021:i:c:p:565-578. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.