• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.343-348
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• 2011

Since 2005, food waste has been separately collected and recycled to animal feed or aerobic compost in South Korea. However, the conventional recycling methods discharge process wastewater, which contain pollutant equivalent to more than 50% of food waste. Therefore, anaerobic digestion is considered as an alternative recycling method of food waste to reduce pollutant and recover renewable energy. Recent studies showed that hydrogen can be produced at acidogenic stage in two-stage anaerobic digestion. In this study, the authors investigated the effects of pretreatment time and pH low set value on continuous mesophilic hydrogen fermentation of food waste. Food waste was successfully converted to $H_2$ when heat-treated at $70^{\circ}C$ for 60 min, which was milder than previous studies using pH 12 for 1 day or $90^{\circ}C$. Organic acid production dropped operational pH below 5.0 and caused a metabolic shift from $H_2/butyrate$ fermentation to lactate fermentation. Therefore, alkaline addition for operational pH at or over 5.0 was necessary. At pH 5.3, the result showed that the maximum hydrogen productivity and yield of 1.32 $m^3/m^3$.d and 0.71 mol/mol $carbohydrate_{added}$. Hydrogen production from food waste would be an effective technology for resource recovery as well as waste treatment.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.46-53
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• 2018

This study explores the environmentally innovative and low-impact technology, a zero food waste system (ZFWS) that utilizes food waste and converts it into composts or biofuels and curtails carbon emissions. The ZFWS not just achieves food waste reductions but recycles food waste into fertilizer. Based on a fermentation-extinction technique using bio wood chips, the ZFWS was employed in a field experiment of the system installed in a large-scale apartment complex, and the performance of the system was examined. The on-site ZFWS consisted of three primary parts: 1) a food waste slot into which food waste was injected; 2) a fermentation-extinction reactor where food waste was mixed with bio wood chips made up of complex enzyme and aseptic wood chips; and 3) deodorization equipment in which an ultraviolet and ozone photolysis method was employed. The field experiment showed that food waste injected into the ZFWS was reduced by 94%. Overall microbial activity of the food waste in the fermentation-extinction reactor was measured using adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), and the degradation rate of organic compounds, referred to as volatile solids, increased with ATP concentration. The by-products generated from ZFWS comply with the national standard for organic fertilizer.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.31 no.4 s.85
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• pp.294-300
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• 2005

Food waste can be a valuable carbon source in biological nutrient removal (BNR) systems because of high C/N and C/P ratios. However, food waste should be pretreated to promote its hydrolysis rate because hydrolysis reaction would be a rate-limiting step. This study investigates the influence of the enzymatic pretreatment on acid fermentation of food waste. Solubilization of particulate matter in food waste by using commercial enzymes was examined. The acidification efficiency and the volatile fatty acids (VFAs) production potential of enzymatically pretreated food waste were also examined. The highest volatile suspended solids (VSS) reduction was obtained with an enzyme mixture ratio of 1:2:1 of carbohydrase:protease:lipase. An optimum enzyme dosage for solubilization of food waste was $0.1\%$(V/V) with the enzyme mixture ratio of 1:2:1. In the acid fermentation of enzymatically pretreated food waste, $0.1\%$(V/V) enzyme mixture dosage for pretreatment result in the maximum VFAs production and the best VFAs fraction in soluble COD(SCOD). The VFAs production at this addition level was 3.3 times higher than that of no-enzyme added fermenter. The dominant VFAs present was n-butyrate followed by acetate.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.765-771
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• 2011

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of heat treatment on the start-up performance for anaerobic hydrogen fermentation of food waste. The result showed that hydrogen production was $0.61{\pm}0.31$ mol $H_2$/mol hexose with heat-treatment of food waste at $70^{\circ}C$ for 60 min whereas it was $0.36{\pm}0.31$ mol $H_2$/mol hexose without heat-treatment of one. The heat treatment of food waste enhanced hydrogen yield due probably to the increase of hydrolysis as well as the decrease of non-hydrogen fermentation microorganisms. The removal efficiency of carbohydrate in reactors regardless of heat treatment of food waste maintained over 90%. The hydrogen conversion efficiency from food waste was 1.7-6.3% with heat-treatment whereas it was 0.7-4.5% without heat-treatment. At the time of switchover from batch to continuous operation, lactate concentration was high compared to the n-butyrate concentration in anaerobic hydrogen fermentation reactor without heat-treatment. Anaerobic hydrogen fermentation of food waste with heat treatment was stable in start-up periods because lactate concentration could be maintained at a relatively low compared to n-butyrate concentration due to the decrease of non-hydrogen fermentation microorganisms.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.363-368
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• 2010

The overall indicator of microbial activity in the fermentation-extinction reaction of food waste by using bio wood-chips were investigated by considering adenosine tri-phosphate(ATP). Degradation rate of organic compounds, which was represented by chemical oxygen demand(COD) and total nitrogen(TN), was increased with the concentration of adenosine tri-phosphate during fermentation-extinction reaction of food waste by using bio-wood chips. With this view, the ATP would be one of the overall evaluation indicator of organic degradation in the species of bio-wood chip for the fermentation-extinction of food waste.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.794-799
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• 1997

The effective fermentation methods of Kimchi juice for utilization of outer layer of Chinese cabbage, an waste of Kimchi industry were studied. The Kimchi juice prepared with brining and grinding the waste of Chinese cabbage and addition of spices was fermented at $25^{\circ}C$. Addition of 5$^{\circ}C$15% fermented Kimchi juice of pH 5.4 at initial stage and pH 4.4 at middle state resulted in a significant increase in fermentation rate and solid content after 12 hours of fermentation. The combined method of enzymatic hydrolysis(0.1% viscozyme) of the brined and ground cabbage and addition of 2.0% NaCl, 1.0% sucrose and 10% fermented juice of pH 5.4 first and 4.4 during fermentation, respectively resulted in more rapid fermentation. The solid concentration was 5 times higher than control at maximum point and acidic and total flavor intensity were also significantly high.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.126-131
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• 2002

For the probiotic feed production from residual food waste, aerobic liquid fermentation was conducted by thermophilic bacteria. 11 Strains of bacteria were isolated from several soil sources and residual food waste. Screening was carried by shaking incubator for the separation of thermophilic strain at $55^{\circ}C$. The isolated strains were tested for enzyme activities such as ${\alpha}$-amylase and protease. 6 Bacterial strains were chosen and were adapted by repeated fermentation processes in food waste substrate. The viable cell count of them at final fermentation stages were shown as $3-7{\times}10^9/ml$ in 2L-jar fermenter. Among them B3, B6 showed higher enzyme activity. By the mixed fermentation of B3, B6 and Bacillus stearothermophilus, the highest viable cell count reached to $1.4{\times}10^{10}/ml$ in 8 hours.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.1255-1263
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• 2012

Batch cultivations were performed to evaluate the influences of the initial pH condition on mesophilic and thermophilic acidogenic fermentation with food waste recycling wastewater. In both conditions of mesophilic and thermophilic fermentation, TVFAs production rates were maximized at the initial pH 7 condition as 0.15 and 0.23 g TVFAs/L hr, respectively. And pH was also maintained stably between 6 and 7 during 72hr acidogenic cultivation at both conditions. However, predominant VFA components were different according to reaction temperature conditions. In mesophilic condition, propionic acid which has low conversion efficiency to methane was accumulated up to 1,348 mg/L while acetic and butyric acid were predominant in thermophilic condition. Therefore, thermophilic acidogenic fermentation was superior for the effective VFAs production than mesophilic condition. From the DGGE analysis, the band patterns were different according to the initial pH conditions but the correlations of the each band were increased in similar pH conditions. These results mean that microbial communities were certainly affected by the initial pH condition. Consequently, the adjustment of the initial pH to neutral region and thermophilic operation are needed to enhance acidogenic fermentation of food waste recycling wastewater.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.333-339
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• 2011

In the present work, it was attempted to produce $H_2$ from food waste by the two-stage fermentation system. Food waste was acidified to lactate by using indigenous lactic acid bacteria under mesophilic condition, and the lactate fermentation effluent (LFE) was subsequently converted to $H_2$ by photo-fermentation. $Rhodobacter$ $sphaeroides$ KD131 was used as the photo-fermenting bacteria. The optimal conditions for lactate fermentation were found to be pH of 5.5 and substrate concentration of 30 g Carbo. COD/L, under which yielded 1.6 mol lactate/mol glucose. By filtering the LFE and adding trace metal, $H_2$ production increased by more than three times compared to using raw LFE, and finally reached the $H_2$ yield of 3.6 mol $H_2$/mol lactate. Via the developed two-stage fermentation system $H_2$ yield of 5.8 mol $H_2$/mol glucose was achieved from food waste, whose value was the highest that ever recorded.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.108-116
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• 2001

It is difficult to task to achieve high biological nutrient removal from municipal wastewater because of low organic content. Volatile fatty acids(VFAs) produced from acid fermentation of food wastes can be utilized as external carbon sources for the biological nutrient process. Significant reduction and stabilization of the food wastes can also be obtained from the acid fermentation. The objective of this study is to evaluate characteristics of acid fermentation of the food wastes. Results obtained from the batch experiment of various organic wastes showed that the food wastes had high potential to be used as an external carbon source because of the largest production of the VFAs with low nitrogen and phosphorus content. The fish waste was found to be the next possible organic waste, while the others such as radish cabbage and molasses waste showed high VFAs consumption potential as a results of high nitrogen and phosphorus content. alkaline hydrolysis of the food waste was carried out using NaOH prior to the acid fermentation. As the alkali addition increased, solubilization of the organics as well as TSS reduction increased. However, fraction of soluble COD to total COD became stable after a sharp increase. Alkali addition greater than 0.5g NaOH per g TS resulted in significant increase in pH.