Enhancing the Methane Generation from Food Waste Anaerobic Digestion Mediated by Fluidic Oscillator Generated Microbubbles

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As a society, we are wasting a lot of food with global food wastage estimated at 2 billion tonnes p.a. Growing population and the growth of the middle class is only going to increase this problem. That which cannot be repurposed as animal feed is mitigated using appropriate waste treatment facilities. One of these strategies is to use an airtight container to let microbes degrade this waste into biogas(predominantly a mixture ofmethane(CH4)+CarbonDioxide(CO2) and other gases in minor amounts) and manure in an oxygen free environment in a process known as anaerobic digestion(AD). This process is relatively clean, generates biogas which can be used for energy generation and reduces the greenhouse gas emissions due to uncontrolled release of methane in the landfill.Our proposed solution enhances this process by periodic sparging of CO2 microbubbles in order to increase the CH4 yield by 110%. It is also planned to sweeten (separate CO2) the biogas released by mineral carbonation mediated by microbubbles. Increase of process efficiencies via total process integration at site is another objective making this project an inherently sustainable energy solution.