ENERGY, EXERGY AND TECHNO-ECONOMIC

ANALYSES OF HIDROTHERMAL
OXIDATION OF FOOD WASTE TO
PRODUCE HIDRO-CHAR AND BIO-OIL

UNIVERSIDAD DE CARTAGENA
Facultad de ingeniería - Ingeniería Química

José Maria López Genes

Liliana Padilla Torreglosa
Maria Paola Saravia Palomino
 Energy, exergy and techno-
economic analyses of hydrothermal
oxidation of food waste to
produce hydro-char and bio-oil
In this study, energy, exergy and techno-economic analyses of HOT
(hydrothermal oxidation) of food waste to solid (hydrochar) and
liquid (bio-oil) fuels were performed. The HOT process was carried
with and without enzymatic pre-treatment for fuel production. A
conceptual chemical mass balance model was developed.
Increasing the process temperature increased the yield of bio-oil and
enhanced the quality of the hydro-char. Inclusion of the enzymatic
pre-treatment reduced bio-oil yield but enhanced hydro-char quality.
Energy balance and exergy analyses indicated that the HOT
process is feasible at different operating temperatures.
 INTRODUCTION

Food waste represents a significant fraction of municipal solid waste .

Globally, the amount of food waste generated has been increasing steadily
over the years. According to the Global Food Losses and Food Waste
report published in 2011 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations, about 1.3 billion tons (i.e. one third of the total food
produced in the world for human consumption) are lost at various stages of
food supply, namely, production, processing, distribution, consumption, and
disposal . Proper management of food waste is required to reduce its
environmental burdens and to minimize risks to human health.
TERMINOLOGY
USED IN ARTICLE
 MATERIALS AND METHODS

FOOD WASTE BIOMASS

Food wastewas collected periodically from different ethnic food stalls
within the National University of Singapore campus. This food waste
represents the common food waste generated within Singapore. Initial
visual observations of the collected food waste indicated a variety of
food items e.g. chicken, seafood, French fries, vegetables, and bread.
To avoid damaging the food blender used for homogenizing food
waste, hard components present in the food waste such as bones and
plastic cutleries were removed manually.
 ENZYMATIC PRETREATMENT
This study considers two cases: with enzymatic pretreatment of food waste and
without enzymatic pretreatment of food waste Nomenclature AD anaerobic
digestion HOT hydrothermal oxidation. A mixture of three commercial enzymes:
carbohydrase, protease and lipase (SigmaeAldrich), was used for the
enzymatic treatment. Viscozyme (V2010), a multienzyme complex containing a
wide range of carbohydrases, having 100 FBGU/g enzyme activity, was used
as carbohydrase in this study.
HYDROTHERMAL OXIDATION
Hydrothermal oxidation of the food waste was carried out in 500ml Parr Series
4575, pressure batch reactor. The food waste was first mixed well with water in
the mass ratio of 1:4 and the reactor was run at desired temperatures: 150°C,
250°C and 350°C with a constant reaction time of 20 min. The temperature of
the reactor was regulated by a PID temperature controller.
 QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENT OF PRODUCTS
AND THEIR CHARACTERIZATIONS
After the reactor has cooled down to room temperature, the reactor was opened and gas product (syngas) was
released through the exhaust duct. The amount of syngas produced was very small and assumed to be
inconsequential in the energy balance calculation and also in other calculations. The supernatant and hydro-char
products were separated by gravity filtration using Whatman filter paper. The hydro-char was washed in deionized
water and left to dry overnight in an oven at 60C. The mass of dried hydro-char was measured using an electric
mass balance. The hydrochars bobtained from the raw food waste were labeled as FWH-150, FWH-250 and FWH-
350 and those obtained from the enzyme treated food waste as E-FWH-150, E-FWH-250 and E-FWH-350 based
on the reaction temperature.
The elemental composition of bio-oil has been estimated using the mass balance of
the HOT process. The amount of syngas produced is considered to be negligible and
only two phases (solid and liquid) are considered. The moles of each element going
to the conversion process must equal the moles of elements coming out of the
process and distributed in the two phases.
 ENERGY BALANCE
The energy balance of the system is based on the laws of conservation of
energy. Total input energy into a control volume must equal the total output
energy from the control volume.
Under equilibrium conditions, the energy balance of the entire system:

If the energy required to raise the temperature of the feed Qp is considered to

be equal to the energy released when products are cooled down to room
temperature Qh, i.e. Qp¼Qh, the energy balance equation simplifies to:

The HHV values of food waste and hydrochar can be estimated using the
following Dulong's HHV formula
where C, H, S and O are the elemental composition (% by wt) of the respective elements. The
HHV value of bio-oil can be estimated using the following unified formula proposed by
Channiwala et al.

where C, H, S, O and N are the elemental composition (% by wt) of the respective elements. ‘A’
represents the ash mass fraction (%). Once the energy of all the streams has been calculated,
the efficiency of the conversion process can be estimated using equation

Return on the energy invested, similar to the concept of the economic term “return on
investment”, is defined as follows
 EXERGY ANALYSIS
The energy balance model used in this study deals with the quantity of energy in and out of the
system. It is an application of the first law of thermodynamics. While the energy balance gives
important information, it does not address the quality of the energy.
Exergy analysis can estimate the irreversibilities of processes (due to creation of entropy) and
determine the energy of quality products obtained. The exergy balance equation is as follow:

The exergy of a fluid stream per unit mass is expressed by the following expression
HOT PROCESS
The correlations are mainly based on lower heating value (LHV) and the exergy coefficient, b, as
shown below:

where LHV is the lower heating value. LHV can be evaluated based on the HHV using Equation

The exergy coefficient for food waste biomass, hydro-char and bio-oil, in terms of the elemental
mass fraction z, is given below
The electrical exergy is considered to be the same as the electrical energy. The
exergy efficiency was then calculated, which is defined as the ratio of the exergy
associated with the desired energy output to the exergy associated with energy
spent to achieve the output [37], represented by the equation below:

In the same way as done for energy analysis, we could define a “Return on Exergy
Invested (RExI)” to have a better representation of the useful form of work
produced compared to the useful work actually done. The ratio is given below:
 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Residuos de alimentos en Singapur

Distribution of the elements (C, H, N and O) contained in the food

waste biomass between the product streams (the solid hydro-chars
and liquid bio-oil).
Carbon in the food waste is considered renewable. Therefore, it is
feasible to have a high proportion of carbon content in the desired
products.
𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒃𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒉𝒚𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓 𝒐𝒓 𝒃𝒊𝒐𝒐𝒊𝒍
𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒃𝒐𝒏 𝒇𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒆𝒅 (𝑪𝑭𝑻) =
𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒃𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒇𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒅
 TECHNO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS (TEA)
OF A COMMERCIAL PLANT

Process diagram
Food waste cost and enzyme costs
Equipment costs
Utilities costs
Manufacturing cost estimation
Cash flow analysis
Sensitivity analysis of key factors of profitability
PROCESS DIAGRAM
Food waste cost and enzyme Equipment costs
costs

 Cost of labor for harvesting  Material construction equipment

 Cost of transport fuel (stainless steel)

 Insurance, among others  Total cost of the plant or fixed capital

investment (CFLI)
a. Auxiliary Services
cost
2011 calculated b. Cost of contingency
60,79$/ton
 Working capital
a. Cost of raw materials
2014
cost
calculated
59,45$/ton
b. Operation of labor costs
 Manufacturing cost Utilities costs
estimation

 General  Electrical equipment (through

a. Amount of food software)

b. Raw materials
c. Public Services
d. labor costs, among others.
 Fixed
a. Daily Operations plant
b. Depreciation of equipment
c. Overheads plant, among others.
 Cash flow analysis Sensitivity analysis of key
factors of profitability

 (Minimum selling price) of the two  Profitability criteria

products (hydro-char and bio-oil) a. VAN
b. cumulative cash position
c. recovery period
d. among others
 CONCLUSIONS

Process efficiency decreases with increasing

temperature
The enzymatic pretreatment improves the quality of
hidrochar and bio oil, but increases in commodity prices.
The three key factors affecting profitability are the bio-oil
process, the cost of the enzyme used in the process and
the selling price of bio-oil yield.
It mentions two food waste costs and
enzymes
 say true or false

a. Among higher the more efficient is the process

temperature

b. When enzymes are used, the cost of products

decreases
¿What Indicated Energy balance and exergy
analyses that the HOT process?
With the physical exergy rate is
related?