A comprehensive review of anaerobic digestion of organic solid wastes in relation to microbial community and enhancement process

Organic solid wastes (OSWs) should be regarded as valuable resources rather than dead‐end landfill waste that causes public health and odor concerns. Anaerobic digestion (AD) is an ideal approach for managing organic solid waste issues and involves using a group of anaerobic microorganisms to transform OSWs into useful products. In this review, over 100 publications related to AD of OSWs have been compiled, discussed, and analyzed. A comprehensive analysis of the environmental and safety impacts of AD, its key environmental factors, co‐digestion, and pretreatment, as well as the AD of OSWs by various anaerobic microbes uncovered by high throughput sequencing‐based approaches, is presented. The purpose of this review is to provide an outline of the current knowledge of AD processes from a multi‐angle perspective. A comprehensive understanding of AD of OSWs and genome‐enabled biology development could be helpful for providing up‐to‐date knowledge of AD, developing it, overcoming its drawbacks and, ultimately, improving global waste control for more efficient environmental management. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry