Enhancement of Methane Production from Vegetable, Fruit and Flower Market Wastes Using Extrusion as Pretreatment and Kinetic Modeling

Organic wastes from wholesale vegetable, fruit, and flower markets are one among the major sources of centralized waste generation in urban cities, which are predominantly disposed at dumpsites. Sustainable solution for the effective treatment and disposal of these wastes from Indian urban centers needs to be explored. Anaerobic digestion (AD) process coupled with extrusion as a pretreatment prior to AD was studied to increase methane production from vegetable, fruit, and flower market wastes. The detailed waste characterization and bio-methane potential (BMP) tests of vegetable, fruit, and flower market wastes were carried out. From the results of BMP tests, the highest specific methane yield (SMY) of 332.7 mL N /g oDM (31% increase) was obtained for extruded fruit market wastes compared with non-extruded wastes, which showed SMY of 253.9 mL N /g oDM. Similarly, the SMY of vegetable and flower market wastes was significantly increased ( p