Integrating the composition of food waste into the techno-economic analysis of waste biorefineries for biodiesel production

Abstract

Waste biorefinery could facilitate the transition from a fossil-based linear economy to sustainable circular bioeconomy. Nevertheless, scaling it up from laboratory to industry is not feasible in the absence of a comprehensive techno-economic assessment. A methodology aimed at providing such assessment was developed in this study by integrating the quantity and composition of waste obtained from a support vector machine model into the techno-economic calculation. This proposed method was applied to evaluate different food waste biorefineries for biodiesel production under different scenarios. According to the results, profitability of a biorefinery is affected by market price, food waste processing capacity, waste composition, and the valorization pathway. Only when the market price is high and the food waste processing capacity reaches >1.19 million tonnes per year, the biorefinery using one-step transesterification can be profitable, suggesting the significance of developing integrated waste biorefineries.