Biotechnology for Zero Waste – Emerging Waste Management Techniques (Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain (editor) etc.)

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Microbiology of Biogas Production from Food Waste:

Current Status, Challenges, and Future Needs

Vanajakshi Vasudeva¹, Inchara Crasta², and Sandeep N. Mudliar^2,3,*

1Food Safety & Analytical Control Laboratory, CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysuru,

Karnataka, 570020, India

2Department of Plant Cell Biotechnology, CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysuru,

Karnataka, 570020, India

3Academy of scientiﬁc and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India

32.1

Introduction

There is a growing energy scarcity and rising environmental concern owing to

rapid urbanization. Hence, biofuels are gaining increasing global importance.

Biofuels, including compressed biogas (CBG), are obtained from renewable biomass

resources such as agricultural residue, municipal solid waste (MSW), distillery spent

wash, sugarcane press mud, sewage treatment plant waste, cattle dung, food waste,

food processing industry waste, forestry residues, etc. This ensures pursuit of a

higher degree of national energy security in an eco-friendly and sustainable manner

by complementing conventional energy resources and plummeting dependence on

imported fossil fuels to meet the energy requirements of India’s urban and massive

rural population.

Advanced biofuels are fuels that can be produced from lignocellulosic feedstocks,

non-food crops, or industrial waste and residue streams, which generate low

CO2 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are non-competing with food

crops at terrestrial level. Fuels such as second-generation (2G) ethanol, algae-based

third-generation (3G) biofuels, bio-compressed natural gas (bio-CNG), biomethanol,

dimethyl ether (DME) derived from biomethanol, biohydrogen, drop-in fuels with

MSW as the feedstock material can be entitled as “advanced biofuels.”

The manifold advantages of generating CBG from food waste and MSW on com-

mercial scale include – smart waste management, extra income source for farm-

ers promoting rural economy and employment, upholding national responsibilities

in accomplishing climate change goals, and saving on import of natural gas and

crude oil.

The National Policy on Biofuels 2018 of India accentuates the active promotion

of advanced biofuels, including bio-CNG. The goal of the policy is to enable

*Corresponding author.

Biotechnology for Zero Waste: Emerging Waste Management Techniques, First Edition.

Edited by Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain and Ravi Kumar Kadeppagari.