Modelling and simulation of food waste bio-drying

Bio-drying of food waste is an attractive aerobic treatment method for moisture removal and producing refuse-derived fuel (RDF) beneficial for waste utilization as an energy source. Understanding the mechanism of process and interaction of key variables is necessary for optimizing the parameters to improve the water removal rate. In the present study, an attempt was made to develop mass and energy balances using the first principles to predict the variation of key variables namely concentration of degradable matter, moisture, oxygen concentration, and temperature based on process kinetics. The simulation of the developed first-order ordinary differential equations combined for three horizontal layers of the waste pile was carried out using Simulink software in MATLAB R2020b interface. The predicted output was compared with experimental data of the pilot-scale plant for food waste with different municipal solid waste components including paper and plastic and with literature data for food waste with a bulking agent (BA). A good prediction of bio-drying performance was achieved using the proposed model and the experimental data. [Display omitted] •Comprehensive model for food waste bio-drying with mass and energy balances based on process kinetics.•Modeled the effect of counter current flow of leachate and air across the horizontal layers of waste pile.•Simulation of combined differential equations of three layers of pile using Simulink software in MATLAB R2020b interface.•Comparison of predicted output with experimental result of food waste without addition of bulking agent and literature data with bulking agent.