Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Life cycle assessment of food waste anaerobic digestion with hydrothermal

and ionizing radiation pretreatment
Xionghui Fei a, b, Wenbao Jia b, c, Ting Chen d, e, Yongsheng Ling b, c, *
a
School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, PR China
b
Department of Nuclear Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, PR China
c
Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiation Medicine of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, Suzhou, 215021, PR China
d
School of Environment Science & Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310012, China
e
Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Solid Waste Treatment and Recycling, Hangzhou, 310012, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling Editor: Mingzhou Jin Extensive research has been conducted on the life cycle assessment of anaerobic digestion of food waste.
However, few studies have evaluated the environmental impact of anaerobic digestion from a technical
Keywords: perspective. This study focuses on the environmental impact of using ionization radiation pretreatment tech­
Solid waste treatment nology in the anaerobic digestion of food waste and compares it with that of traditional hydrothermal pre­
Resource recycling
treatment. Model construction, environmental impact assessment, and Monte Carlo simulation calculations were
Biogas power generation
performed using the OpenLCA software. Data for the analysis were obtained from an actual plant in China,
Environmental impact
Materials flow experiments, literature, and databases. The results show that the introduction of the proposed ionizing radiation
Energy balance pretreatment causes the treatment of food waste via anaerobic digestion to have the lowest environmental
impact in 14 of the 18 categories analyzed. Pretreatment was found to be the most energy-consuming unit in food
waste treatment, accounting for 71–75% of the total energy consumption. This research has an important guiding
role in the development and application of ionizing radiation pretreatment technology for food waste.

as “urban minerals”. Therefore, reasonable and effective treatment of

food waste can reduce water, soil, and air pollution and produce envi­
1. Introduction
ronmental benefits (Holm-Nielsen et al., 2009); avoid harm to human
health and produce certain social benefits (Papargyropoulou et al.,
Food waste (FW) is an important component of municipal solid waste
2014); at the same time, the products obtained after treatment such as
(MSW). In many countries in North America, Europe and Asia, FW ac­
biogas or fertilizer can bring certain economic benefits (Banks et al.,
counts for 12–30% of their total solid waste. However, this proportion
2011).
has reached approximately 38% in China (Xu et al., 2015). Due to
At present, the FW disposal process mainly includes landfill, aerobic
China’s urbanization process and the development of the catering in­
composting, incineration and anaerobic digestion (AD) (Parthiba Kar­
dustry, the amount of FW increased sharply and reached 120 million
thikeyan et al., 2018). Landfills of FW form leachates and release odor,
tons in 2019. The large amount of FW has resulted in considerable
which directly pollute natural resources such as groundwater and the
challenge to MSW disposal. Chinese FW mainly comes from households,
atmosphere, and endangers human health (Zhan et al., 2017). Also,
food processing and manufacturing plants, restaurants, and canteens,
landfills consume many land resources. Therefore, many countries, such
and is characterized by poor dehydration performance, high lipid con­
as Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, prohibit
tent, and easy breeding of pathogenic microorganisms (Chen et al.,
the direct disposal of FW in landfills. Aerobic composting technology
2017). Due to the high COD and salt concentration of food waste, it is
refers to the process by which aerobic microorganisms degrade high
easy to pollute water and soil, and at the same time, it will produce foul
molecular weight organic matter into inorganic matter. Sole FW com­
smell and pollute the air after deterioration. In addition, food waste
posting presents a major challenge. High water content and high organic
carries a large number of pathogenic bacteria and microorganisms,
content lead to slow temperature rise and low volume efficiency of
which could cause harm to human health. FW is rich in organic matter
compost, and FW is also perishable and has poor particle mechanical
(12 wt%) and has a huge potential for biogas production, being known

* Corresponding author. Department of Nuclear Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, PR China.
E-mail address: lingyongsheng@nuaa.edu.cn (Y. Ling).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.130611
Received 13 June 2021; Received in revised form 5 December 2021; Accepted 16 January 2022
Available online 19 January 2022
0959-6526/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Fei et al.
Abbreviations
AD Anaerobic digestion
ALOP Agricultural land occupation
CHP Combined heat and power
FDP Fossil depletion potential
FEP Freshwater eutrophication potential
FETP Freshwater ecotoxicity potential
FW Food waste
GWP Global warming potential
HTP Human toxicity potential
IRP Ionizing radiation potential
LCA Life cycle assessment
MC Monte Carlo
MDP Metal depletion potential
stability (Liu et al., 2012). In addition, the large amount of oil and salt
contained in FW affects the decomposition rate of organic matter by
microorganisms. Incineration of waste to generate electricity is an
effective method for achieving waste reduction, harmlessness, and
resource utilization. However, the moisture content of FW is usually
80–90%, it is difficult to dehydrate, and has a low calorific value.
Additional auxiliary fuel needs to be added during combustion, which
increases the cost of incineration. In addition, harmful gases such as SO2,
NOx, dioxins, and furans are generated during the incineration process,
which causes secondary pollution (Di Maria et al., 2021). Therefore,
waste incineration projects have caused considerable controversy dur­
ing implementation process (Wang et al., 2021). AD is the process of
using anaerobic microorganisms to convert organic matter in FW into
biogas. The biogas produced can be converted into electric energy and
heat energy through a combined heat and power (CHP) generator set.
The biogas liquid produced after fermentation can be used as a liquid
organic fertilizer after denitrification, desalination, and desulfurization,
and is widely used in agricultural irrigation, garden planting, and other
fields. Biogas residue can also be used as a fertilizer after aerobic com­
posting (Ren et al., 2018). AD is an environmentally friendly treatment
method that has a good effect in reducing and recycling of FW. This
technology is mature and has a high degree of social acceptance.
Therefore, it is widely used worldwide, and there are many practical
application cases. De Clercq et al. (2017) summarized and analyzed the
food waste AD project cases in China, South Korea, Germany, France,
the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Although AD is considered to be one of the most effective FW
disposal methods (Zhang et al., 2015), AD treatment efficiency, energy
consumption, methane production potential, and fermentation cycle are
affected by the physicochemical and biological characteristics of FW.
Therefore, FW is usually pretreated to achieve an efficient and stable AD.
Numerous studies have been conducted on FW pretreatment methods
including mechanical crushing (Izumi et al., 2010), ultrasonic (Gadhe
et al., 2014), microwave (Shahriari et al., 2013), freezing (Ma et al.,
2011), acid (Kim et al., 2014), alkali (Jang et al., 2015), ozone oxidation
(Ariunbaatar et al., 2014), hydrothermal (Ding et al., 2017), ionizing
radiation (Fei et al., 2020), biological enzymes (Kiran et al., 2015), and
composite pretreatment methods. However, according to the data in the
literature, it can be concluded that the energy required for ultrasonic,
freezing and microwave pretreatment is about 270.83 kWh/t FW
(Maranon et al., 2012), 144.28 kWh/t FW and 121.4 kWh/t FW
respectively (Ma et al., 2011), while high energy consumption is not
conducive to practical production and application. Acid-base pretreat­
ment requires the consumption of chemical reagents, and the pH needs
to be adjusted after pretreatment to perform AD, which increases the
amount of reagents and salt concentration, as well as the economic cost
(Kim et al., 2014). Although ozone oxidation does not have chemical
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Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611
MEP Marine eutrophication potential
METP Marine ecotoxicity potential
MSW Municipal solid waste
NLTP Natural land transformation potential
NMVOC Non-methane volatile organic compounds
ODP Ozone depletion potential
PMFP Particulate matter formation potential
POFP Photochemical oxidant formation potential
TAP Terrestrial acidification potential
TETP Terrestrial ecotoxicity potential
TS Total solids
ULOP Urban land occupation potential
VS Volatile solids
WDP Water depletion potential
reagent residues, the use of large amounts of ozone leads to high costs
(Ariunbaatar et al., 2014). Biological enzyme pretreatment requires a
long time, prolonging the cycle of the fermentation process and lowering
the treatment efficiency, which does not meet the actual industrial needs
(Kiran et al., 2015). Hydrothermal pretreatment is beneficial for the
separation of lipids from FW while increasing the biogas yield of FW AD.
The separated lipids are used to produce biodiesel. Therefore, the hy­
drothermal pretreatment method has been adopted in many FW AD
treatment plants in China (Jin et al., 2015). As an emerging pretreat­
ment method proposed in previous studies, ionizing radiation pretreat­
ment method has the characteristics of simple operation, good treatment
effect, and no chemical reagents required (Fei et al., 2020). Based on the
life cycle theory and effective evaluation model, this study analyzes the
FW AD system with hydrothermal and ionizing radiation pretreatment
from the perspective of environmental impact.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) identifies and quantifies the inputs and
outputs associated with the entire life cycle of a product system. It is an
important tool that can be used to evaluate and compare the environ­
mental impacts and sustainability of different product systems. LCA is
also applied in product development, process improvement, strategic
planning, public policymaking, marketing, and consumer education.
Moreover, it helps to determine environmental critical areas. The LCA of
FW AD treatment has been studied extensively. Hsien et al. (2019)
studied the environmental impact of four FW conversion scenarios in
Singapore and found that although the proposed small-scale aerobic
composting system is more environmentally favorable compared with
FW incineration, it is not ideal compared with the AD process. Ahamed
et al. (2016) evaluated three FW management strategies (AD,
FW-to-energy biodiesel, and incineration) from environmental and
economic perspectives. The results of this study indicate that adaptive
strategies need to be adopted according to the type and composition of
FW. Becker et al. (2017) performed an LCA study on the co-management
of FW and domestic wastewater using conventional activated sludge
with landfilling, high-rate activated sludge (HRAS) with landfilling,
HRAS with AD, HRAS with composting, and anaerobic membrane bio­
reactors (AnMBR). AnMBR has been estimated to have the highest po­
tential to minimize environmental impacts. Fei et al. (2021) compared
the environmental impact of FW liquid-phase AD (LP-AD) with FW
solid-liquid mixed AD (SLM-AD) in China and concluded that SLM-AD
had a lower impact on global warming potential, eutrophication po­
tential, acidification potential, and photochemical ozone creation po­
tential than LP-AD. Most of these studies only compared FW AD with
other treatment methods. However, few studies have conducted envi­
ronmental impact assessments on the application of new technologies in
AD systems. In addition, most previous studies considered only a few
impact categories. The objective of this study was to investigate the
environmental impact of two different pretreatment technologies
X. Fei et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611

Fig. 1. System boundary of different food waste management strategies.

Table 1 Table 4
Characteristics of the food waste considered in this study. Air emission in combined heat and power unit.
Parameter Unit Value Pollutants Value Pollutants Value

Total solids (TS) % 13 NOx (kg/t biogas) 1.88 NH3 (kg/t biogas) 0.014
Volatile solids/TS (VS/TS) % 95 CO (kg/t biogas) 1.55 Cd (g/t biogas) 0.145
Impurities content % 8 TOC (kg/t biogas) 0.21 Sb (g/t biogas) 0.246
Recoverable oil content % 3 PM (kg/t biogas) 0.017 As (g/t biogas) 0.246
Carbon %TS 43.8 SO2 (kg/t biogas) 0.23 Co (g/t biogas) 0.246
Nitrogen %TS 2.4 HCl (kg/t biogas) 0.033 Cr (g/t biogas) 0.235
5
Hydrogen %TS 7.2 Hg (kg/t biogas) 5.6*10− Mn (g/t biogas) 0.38
3
HF (kg/t biogas) 3.4*10− Ni (g/t biogas) 0.419
Pb (g/t biogas) 0.246 V (g/t biogas) 0.246
Cu (g/t biogas) 0.246 CO2-biogenic (t/t biogas) 1.46

Table 2
The input and output of biodiesel produced by homogeneous catalysis method.
Table 5
Parameter Unit Value Air emission of windrow composting.
Inputs Lipid t 0.03 Air emission Unit Minimum Average Maximum
Electricity kWh 10.26
Steam kg 29.7 CO2 kg/t waste 134 256 378
Water kg 5.4 CH4 g/t waste 63 345 628
Coal kg 3.9 NH3 g/t waste 25 300 576
Methanol kg 0.324 N2O g/t waste 22 127 232
Potassium hydroxide kg 0.216 NMVOC g/t waste 10 855 1700
Sulfuric acid kg 0.216 H2S g/t waste 20 790 1560
Outputs Biodiesel kg 27 PM g/t waste 74 92 110
Wastewater t 0.66
Glycerin kg 0.81
Bitumen kg 1.89 (hydrothermal and ionizing radiation) applied in FW AD systems (with
energy recovery) and compare them with the incineration of FW (with
energy recovery). This study provides developmental directions for the
existing AD systems in China.

Table 3 2. Methods
The inputs and environmental emissions of anerobic digestion.
Parameter Unit Value 2.1. Methodology
Inputs Electricity kWh/t FW 28.5
Lubricating oil g/t FW 4.96 The LCA applied in this study followed ISO 14040 and 14,044
NaOH g/t FW 14.99 standards (ISO, 2006a; ISO, 2006b). LCA methodology requires the
Environmental emissions CH4 kg/t FW 1.5% of total CH4
development of the following four steps: goal and scope definition; in­
NH3 kg/t FW 0.24
NOx kg/t FW 0.015 ventory analysis; impact assessment; and result interpretation. The
H2S kg/t FW 0.0082 OpenLCA software and Agribalyse-v3 database were used to establish
the product life cycle model and perform calculations and analyses. Part

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X. Fei et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611

Fig. 2. Main process and material flow of S1 (food waste anerobic digestion with hydrothermal pretreatment).

Fig. 3. Main process and material flow of S2 (food waste anerobic digestion with ionizing radiation pretreatment).

Fig. 4. Main process and material flow of S3 (incineration of food waste).

of the data used in this study comes from the actual production emis­
sions data available in China. Some data points missing from the pro­
duction emissions data were obtained from the experimental results and
recent literature. For road transportation, incineration, and wastewater
treatment, the emission inventory was derived from the built-in data in
the database. To estimate the electricity consumption on site, the power
source distribution (coal 79.85%, hydro 17.31%, nuclear 1.77%, and
wind 1.07%) from the China National Statistics Bureau was used. The
life cycle impact assessment results were calculated by using the
ReCiPe-midpoint method, which considers 18 midpoint impact
categories.
2.2. Goal definition
The main goal of this study was to determine whether the intro­
duction of ionizing radiation pretreatment technology in FW AD
Fig. 5. Energy input and output of each processing unit in S1, S2 and S3.
disposal can offer better environmental benefits compared to conven­
tional hydrothermal pretreatment and compare it to incineration of FW.
2.3. Functional unit and system boundary
The functional unit is the basis of life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis.
The unit input or product output is usually selected as a functional unit
(Li et al., 2018). In this study, the functional unit was treated with 1 t
FW. The materials, energy, and chemicals input, main treatment pro­
cess, environmental emissions, product output, and energy recovery are
based on this functional unit.
Three alternative strategies (S1, S2, and S3) for Chinese FW manage­
ment were considered and simulated in this study. Fig. 1 illustrates the

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X. Fei et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611

Table 6 Table 8
The main inputs and outputs of U1 and U2. The main inputs and outputs of U5.
Unit S1 S2 S3 Unit S1 S2 S3

U1 Collection and I Food kg 1000 1000 1000 U5 I Biogas kg 50.15 70.93 –

transfer waste O Electricity kWh 93.37 134.3 –
Diesel kg 4.17 4.17 4.17 Heat MJ 481.5 681 –
O Food kg 1000 1000 1000 NOx kg 0.094 0.133 –
waste CO kg 0.078 0.11 –
Inventory See Table S1 TOC kg 0.011 0.015 –
Screening and I Food kg 1000 1000 – PM g 0.853 1.206 –
shredding waste SO2 kg 0.012 0.016 –
Electricity kWh 5.69 5.69 – HCl kg 0.002 0.002 –
O Food kg 920 920 – Hg g 3E-03 4E-03 –
waste HF g 0.171 0.241 –
Sundries kg 80 80 – Pb g 0.012 0.017 –
U2 Hydrothermal I Food kg 920 – – Cu g 0.012 0.017 –
pretreatment waste NH3 g 0.702 0.993 –
Electricity kWh 108.66 – – Cd g 0.007 0.01 –
O Food kg 890 – – Sb g 0.012 0.017 –
waste As g 0.012 0.017 –
Lipid kg 30 – – Co g 0.012 0.017 –
CO2 kg 1.7 – – Cr g 0.012 0.017 –
NH3 kg 0.031 – – Mn g 0.019 0.027 –
Ionizing radiation I Food kg – 920 – Ni g 0.021 0.03 –
pretreatment waste V g 0.012 0.017 –
Electricity kWh – 100 – CO2 biogenic t 0.073 0.104 –
O Food kg – 920 –
waste Notes: U5 is combined heat and power unit; I-input and O-output.

Notes: U1 is feedstock preparation unit; U2 is pretreatment unit; I-input and O-

output.
Table 9
The main inputs and outputs of U6, U7 and U8.

Table 7 Unit S1 S2 S3
The main inputs and outputs of U3 and U4. U6 I Biogas residue kg 100.8 109.5 –
Unit S1 S2 S3 Electricity kWh 0.714 0.775 –
Diesel kg 0.042 0.045 –
U3 I Lipid kg 30 – – O Fertilizer kg 30.2 32.85 –
Electricity kWh 10.26 – – CO2 kg 13.5 14.67 –
Steam kg 29.7 – – CH4 g 6.349 6.897 –
Water kg 5.4 – – NH3 g 2.52 2.737 –
Coal kg 3.9 – – N2O g 2.217 2.409 –
Methanol kg 0.324 – – NMVOC g 1.008 1.095 –
NaOH kg 0.216 – – H2S g 2.016 2.19 –
H2SO4 kg 0.216 – – PM g 7.458 8.101 –
O Biodiesel kg 27 – – U7 I Sundries kg 80 80 –
Wastewater kg 660 – – Food waste kg – – 1000
Glycerin kg 0.81 – – O Electricity kWh 3.33 3.33 15.79
Bitumen kg 1.89 – – Heat MJ 37.6 37.6 178.1
U4 I Food waste kg 890 920 – Inventory See Table S2
Electricity kWh 25.36 26.22 – U8 I Biogas slurry kg 739.1 739.6 –
Lubricating oil g 4.41 4.56 – Wastewater kg 660 – –
NaOH g 13.34 13.79 – Filtrate kg – – 621
O Biogas kg 50.15 70.93 – O Inventory See Table S3
Biogas slurry kg 739.1 739.6 –
Biogas residue kg 100.8 109.5 – Notes: U6 is windrow composting unit; U7 is incineration unit; U8 is wastewater
CH4 kg 0.3 0.42 – treatment unit; I-input and O-output.
NH3 kg 0.21 0.22 –
NOx g 13.35 13.8
2.4. Life cycle inventory analysis
–
H2S g 7.3 7.54 –

Notes: U3 is biodiesel production; U4 is anerobic digestion unit; I-input and O-
output.
system boundary and main material flow for each strategy. For S3, the
collected FW was dehydrated and used for incineration to generate elec­
tricity. Both S1 and S2 are based on AD to disposal of FW and obtain
electricity, heat, and produce fertilizer. The difference is that in S1, lipids
are separated from FW through hydrothermal pretreatment for the pro­
duction of biodiesel, whereas in S2, the collected FW is used for AD after
screening, shredding, and ionizing radiation pretreatment. The product
outputs of the three strategies include electricity (S1, S2, and S3), treated
water (S1, S2, and S3), fertilizer (S1 and S2), and biodiesel (S1). Environ­
mental credits for the displacement of grid electricity, heat, tap water, and
diesel by output products were considered in the assessment. The pro­
cessing, input, and output of each unit are described in detail in section 2.4.
2.4.1. Feedstock preparation (U1)
The main characteristics of FW were obtained from a real AD plant
site in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China (Jin et al., 2015). As the physical
and chemical properties of FW are slightly different in various seasons,
the mean value was considered and discussed in this study (Table 1). The
feedstock preparation process for S1 and S2 was the same, which
included the transportation, screening, and shredding of FW. The FW
was collected by a conventional 21 t municipal waste lorry, which falls
in the Euro5 emissions class. It was modeled using built-in data in the
Agribalyse-v3 database. The average transportation distance in the base
case was assumed to be 20 km, with a range of 5–30 km used in the
uncertainty analysis. Diesel consumption, direct airborne emissions of
gaseous substances, particulate emissions from exhaust and abrasions,
and heavy metal emissions to soil and water caused by tire friction were

5
X. Fei et al.
formation potential, × 10− 1 kg NMVOC-eq.; TAP: terrestrial acidification potential, kg SO2-eq; TETP: terrestrial ecotoxicity potential, × 10− 2 kg 1,4-DCB-eq.; ULOP:
urban land occupation potential, × 10− 1 m2a; WDP: water depletion potential, × 10− 1 m3 water-eq.; all impact results are based on processing one ton of food waste).
considered in the operation of vehicles. The collected FW was first
screened to remove large debris such as metal, glass, and plastic, and
then crushed to produce a FW with particle size of 5–8 mm, which is
conducive to the mass transfer reaction of AD. The energy input for the
screening and shredding was 5.69 kWh/t FW (Jin et al., 2015). The
impurities are treated by incineration. The inventory of the feedstock
preparation unit is provided in Support Information (Table S1).
2.4.2. Hydrothermal and ionizing radiation pretreatment (U2)
In the FW pretreatment unit, different strategies used different pre­
treatment methods. For S1, a hydrothermal pretreatment was adopted.
Three tons of crushed FW are heated to 120 ◦ C in a stainless-steel hy­
drothermal reactor and reacted for 1 h. The electric energy required for
hydrothermal pretreatment (function unit: 1 t FW) was calculated using
Eqs. (1)–(3) (Elginoz et al., 2020). In sequence, the lipid was extracted
from FW for subsequent biodiesel production, and the remainder was
used for biogas production by AD. The separation of lipids reduces the
hindering effect of long-chain fatty acids on the utilization of organic
matter by microorganisms. CO2 (1.7 kg/t FW) and NH3 (0.031 kg/t FW)
are the main environmental emissions in the hydrothermal pretreatment
process.
/ 61 g CO, 19.34 g total PM2.5 and PM10, 84.7 g non-methane volatile
Qheat = Cp *MFW *(Tr − Ts ) 3600 (1)
Qloss = A * k∂ / s * (Tr − To )*t / 3
Qreact = (Qheat + Qloss )/ηheat
Qheat is the energy required to heat FW to 120 ◦ C, kWh; Cp is the
specific heat capacity of the FW, 3.58 kJ/(kg⋅◦ C); MFW is the mass of the
FW, 920 kg; Tr and Ts are the reaction and starting temperatures, 393.15
K and 298.15 K, respectively; Qloss is the energy required to maintain a
constant temperature of 393.15 K, kWh; A is the heat-exchange surface,
8.6 m2; k∂ is the thermal conductivity of the stainless steel, 6 × 10− 5 kW/
(m⋅ K); s is the thickness of the reactor, 0.055 m; To is the outside tem­
perature, 298.15 K; t is the reaction time, 1 h; Qreact is the electric energy
required for hydrothermal pretreatment, kWh; and ηheat is the thermal
conversion efficiency of electricity, 0.8.
For S2, the crushed FW was directly transported through a conveyor
belt and passed through the electron accelerator radiation window at a
speed of 3 m/min to absorb a dose of 8.28 kGy. The energy of the
electron beam and the power of the electron accelerator were 10 MeV
and 300 kW, respectively. In sequence, the pre-treated FW was used for
the next AD. Under the action of high-energy rays, long-chain fatty acids
break and form short-chain fatty acids, thereby releasing the inhibitory
effect on microorganisms. At the same time, the ionizing radiation
treatment converts the insoluble polymers into small molecules into the
Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611
Fig. 6. Environmental impacts of food waste disposal
(S1: anerobic digestion with hydrothermal pretreat­
ment; S2: anerobic digestion with ionizing radiation
pretreatment; S3: incineration; ALOP: agricultural
land occupation, m2a; GWP, global warming poten­
tial, × 10 kg CO2-eq.; FDP, fossil depletion potential,
× 10 kg oil-eq.; FETP: freshwater ecotoxicity poten­
tial, × 10− 2 kg 1,4-DCB-eq.; FEP: freshwater eutro­
phication potential, × 10− 2 kg P-eq.; HTP: human
toxicity potential, × 102 kg 1,4-DCB-eq.; IRP: ionizing
radiation potential, kg U235-eq.; METP: marine eco­
toxicity potential, × 102 kg 1,4-DCB-eq.; MEP: marine
eutrophication potential, × 10− 2 kg N-eq.; MDP:
metal depletion potential, × 10− 1 kg Fe-eq.; NLTP:
natural land transformation potential, × 10− 3 m2;
ODP: ozone depletion potential, × 10− 6 kg CFC-11-
eq.; PMFP: particulate matter formation potential,
× 10− 1 kg PM10-eq.; POFP: photochemical oxidant
liquid phase, thereby further increasing the gas production rate and total
gas production of FW AD (Fei et al., 2020). The throughput of ionizing
radiation pretreatment was 3 t/h. No chemical emissions were observed
during the pretreatment process.
2.4.3. Biodiesel production (U3)
The lipids separated in S1 were homogeneously catalyzed to produce
biodiesel. Using 0.5% w/w sulfuric acid as a catalyst, the molar ratio of
methanol to lipid was 4.5, and the transesterification reaction was
performed at atmospheric pressure and 65 ◦ C for 2 h to obtain the crude
biodiesel. Methanol was recycled to the reactor using a partial condenser
and a distillation column. The crude biodiesel was washed, dehydrated,
dealcoholized, and distilled to obtain biodiesel. The inputs and outputs
of the biodiesel production are listed in Table 2 (Yang et al., 2016). The
generated wastewater was transported to a wastewater treatment plant.
The environmental credits for the displacement of diesel by biodiesel
were calculated according to the literature because this information in
the context of China is not available (Chua et al., 2010). The fuel con­
sumption of biodiesel and diesel for vehicles are 17.6 and 15.4 kg/100
km, respectively. Compared with the use of diesel, the use of biodiesel in
vehicles can reduce emissions by 15.78 g SO2, − 6 g NOx, − 1.6 kg CO2,
organic compounds (NMVOC), and 0.4 g CH4 per 100 km of driving. The
biodiesel produced by S2 can ensure 153.4 km for vehicles.
(2)
2.4.4. Anaerobic digestion (U4)
(3)
Both S1 and S2 include AD, and mesophilic (37.5 ◦ C) continuous AD
was adopted in this study. The feed quantity of AD was 1 t/day. In the
digester (reaction volume: 10 m3), FW produces biogas through hy­
drolysis, acidification, acetic acid production, and methanogenesis. The
energy required for the AD process was determined using Eqs. (4)–(6).
̃ ̃ s * (T̃r − To )*t / ηheat
loss = A * k∂ /̃ (4)
̃
Q
Q
̃ loss is the electricity required to maintain a constant temperature of
310.65 K, kWh; A ̃ is the surface area of the digester, 33.04 m2; k̃∂ is the
thermal conductivity of the insulation material, 4.2 × 10− 5 kW/(m⋅ K); ̃s
is the thickness of the insulation, 0.075 m; To is the outside temperature,
293.15 K; t is the reaction time, 360 h; and ηheat is the thermal conversion
efficiency of electricity, 80%.
/
EStir = Np *ρmix *N 3 *d5 *t ηstir (5)
EStir is the energy required for stirring, J; Np is the power number of
the impeller, 3.44; ρmix is the density of the mixture, 954 kg/m3; N is the
rotational speed of agitator, 0.658 s− 1; d is the impeller diameter, 0.803
m; t is the reaction time, 1,296,000 s; and ηstir is the efficiency of the
6
X. Fei et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611

Fig. 7. Contribution of environmental credits in different impact categories (the nomenclature of the impact category is shown in Fig. 6).

agitator, 90%.
Mbiogas = MVS *pbiogas *ρbiogas (7)
/
Epump = m*g*Δh ηpump (6)
(For S1, MVS=MFW*VS-1000*3%; for S2, MVS=MFW*VS)
Epump is the energy required for pump, J; m is the transferred mass, kg;
g is the gravitational acceleration, 9.81 m/s2; Δh is the height difference,
̃
Mdigestate = MFW − MBiogas (8)
4.2 m; and ηpump is the efficiency of the reciprocating pump, 75%.
̃
(For S1, M ̃
FW = 890 kg; for S2, MFW = 920 kg)
As the ionization radiation pretreatment model constructed in this
study has not been applied in actual production yet, the biogas potential Mbiogas is the mass of produced biogas, kg; MVS is the VS content in AD
of FW after hydrothermal pretreatment (478 ± 13 ml biogas/g volatile substrate, kg; pbiogas is the biogas potential, whose values for S1 and S2
solids—VS) and ionization radiation pretreatment (510 ± 8 ml biogas/g were 0.478 and 0.510 m3/kg VS, respectively; Mdigestate is the mass of
VS) (Fei et al., 2020) was obtained through laboratory-scale biochemical
produced digestate, kg; M ̃FW is the mass of FW input, kg; and ρbiogas is the
methane potential testing (Raposo et al., 2011). The degradation effi­
density of biogas (60% CH4 and 40% CO2), 1.22 kg/m3.
ciency of VS was 62% (Ardolino et al., 2018). The biogas and digestate
Digestate was dehydrated to obtain a biogas slurry and biogas res­
produced by AD in S1 and S2 were estimated using Eqs. (7) and (8),
idue. Screw press was used for dehydration treatment, it can achieve
respectively. The AD inventory is shown in Table 3 (Slorach et al.,
90% solid recovery. The water content of the separated biogas slurry is
2019a).

7
X. Fei et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611

Table 10
Uncertainty analysis result of S2 (food waste anaerobic digestion with ionizing radiation pretreatment) obtained by Monte Carlo calculation method.
Impact category Reference unit Mean Standard deviation 5% Percentile 95% Percentile
2
ALOP m a − 0.171 0.0005 − 0.172 − 0.170
GWP kg CO2-Eq − 49.488 0.0254 − 49.528 − 49.446
FDP kg oil-Eq − 25.559 0.0071 − 25.571 − 25.547
FETP g 1,4-DCB-Eq − 37.084 0.476 − 37.411 − 36.511
FEP kg P-Eq − 0.003 0.003 − 0.003 − 0.002
HTP kg 1,4-DCB-Eq − 122.002 2.7022 − 123.787 − 117.860
IRP kg U235-Eq − 0.431 0.0093 − 0.445 − 0.415
METP kg 1,4-DCB-Eq − 58.217 0.9968 − 59.071 − 56.552
MEP kg N-Eq 0.052 0.0147 0.029 0.075
MDP kg Fe-Eq − 0.196 0.0005 − 0.197 − 0.195
NLTP m2 0.001 6E-07 0.001 0.001
ODP mg CFC-11-Eq − 6.154 0.0037 − 6.160 − 6.148
PMFP kg PM10-Eq 0.181 0.0511 0.101 0.261
POFP kg NMVOC-Eq 0.967 0.4889 0.210 1.739
TAP kg SO2-Eq 1.579 0.4617 0.860 2.303
TETP kg 1,4-DCB-Eq 0.017 0.0014 0.016 0.020
ULOP m2a − 0.042 8E-05 − 0.042 − 0.041
WDP m3 water-Eq − 0.010 0.0003 − 0.010 − 0.009

Note: the nomenclature of the impact category is shown in Fig. 6.

about 92%, and the water content of the biogas residue is about 60%.
(Fei et al., 2021). The energy required for dehydration was 5 kWh/t of
digestate. The amount of biogas residue and biogas slurry was deter­
mined using Eqs. (9) and (10), respectively. The biogas produced by AD
was used in CHP to produce electricity and heat, and the biogas slurry
and residue produced were treated through wastewater treatment and
windrow composting, respectively.
( ) / 2.4.7. Incineration (U7)
Mbiogas residue = MFW * TS − MVS * 62% − Mlipid *90% 40% (9)
Mbiogas slurry = Mdigestate − Mbiogas residue (10)
Mbiogas residue is the mass of biogas residue, kg; Mlipid is the mass of
extracted lipid, which were 30 and 0 kg for S1 and S2, respectively; and
Mbiogas slurry is the mass of biogas slurry, kg.
2.4.5. Combined heat and power (U5)
The CHP unit represents the production of electricity and heat from
biogas when burning it in a cogeneration unit with a gas engine. The
main product is electricity, and heat is produced as a co-product. The
CHP unit considered in this study has a capacity of 160 kW, and the
electrical and thermal conversion efficiencies were assumed to be 37%
and 53%, respectively. Equations (11) and (12) were used to calculate
the electricity and heat generated, respectively.
/( ) impurities screened during the feedstock preparation in S1 and S2 were
Eelectricity = Mbiogas *qbiogas *ηe 3.6 * ρbiogas (11)
/
Qheat = Mbiogas *qbiogas *ηh ρbiogas (12)
literature (Edwards et al., 2017) and are shown in Table 5. Owing to the
differences in feedstock characteristics, the emission factor fluctuated
within a certain range. In this study, the average value was used for the
basic case evaluation, and the minimum and maximum values were used
as the boundaries in the uncertainly analysis. The final organic fertilizer
yield was approximately 30% of the biogas residue (Mu et al., 2017).
For S3, the collected FW was transported to the incineration plant,
where it was dehydrated to a moisture content of approximately 60%.
The dehydrated FW was used for incineration and power generation.
The filtrate produced was calculated using Eq. (13), and was transported
to the wastewater treatment plant. Waste incineration was modeled
according to the average data for municipal incineration (60% H2O)
taken from the Agribalyse-v3 database. The processes of transport,
waste-specific air and water emissions from incineration, auxiliary ma­
terial consumption for flue gas cleaning, short-term emissions to river
water, and long-term emissions to ground water from slag compartment,
residual material landfill, and energy consumption were included in the
model. A total of 150 MJ/t of waste electric energy and 470 MJ/t of
waste thermal energy were produced. The avoided burdens for elec­
tricity and heat generation were considered in this study. The inventory
of the incineration unit is shown in Support Information (Table S2). The
also treated by incineration.
MFiltrate = 1 − MFW *TS/40% − Msundries (13)

Eelectricity is the electricity produced, kWh; qbiogas is the average lower
heating value of biogas (65% CH4), 22.1 MJ/Nm3; ηe is the electrical
conversion efficiency, 37%; Qheat is the heat produced, MJ; and ηh is the
thermal conversion efficiency, 53%.
The generated electricity is merged into the grid for residential or
commercial use. The heat generated is recycled in the system. The
avoided burdens brought by the compensation of electricity and heat
were considered in this study. The pollutants concentrations in CHP flue
gases are shown in Table 4 (Ardolino et al., 2018).
2.4.6. Windrow composting (U6)
The biogas residues generated in AD were used to produce organic
fertilizers by typical open windrow composting. The piles were turned
weekly using machines and ventilated by blowers. The electricity and
diesel consumption were 7.08 kWh/t waste and 0.41 kg/t waste,
respectively (Saer et al., 2013). The gaseous emissions during the
windrow composting treatment process were collected from the
MFiltrate (unit: t), MFW (0.92 t), and Msundries (0.08 t) are the masses of
filtrate, FW, and sundries, respectively
2.4.8. Wastewater treatment (U8)
The biogas slurry and filtrate were purified from a municipal
wastewater treatment plant. The model was established based on the
database, which represents a typical three-stage (mechanical, biological,
chemical) wastewater treatment. The treated water was reused by res­
idents through an urban water supply network. The avoided burdens
associated with the output of treated water were evaluated and
considered in the model. The inventory involved in the wastewater
treatment is shown in Support Information (Table S3).
2.5. Uncertainty analysis
The uncertainty analysis was conducted using the Monte Carlo (MC)
method to explore the effect of the data ranges on the environmental

8
X. Fei et al.
impacts. The ranges of transport distance (5–30 km) and air emissions
(Table 5) were chosen as the boundaries in the MC simulations. The
inventory ranges were explored over 10,000 simulation runs using a
uniform distribution. The value for each variable parameter was chosen
randomly to determine the credibility of the environmental impacts in
this study.
3. Results
3.1. Material flow, energy balance, and life cycle inventory results of each
strategy
The main process and material flow of S1, S2, and S3 are shown in
Figs. 2–4, respectively. They were obtained through a detailed intro­
duction, analysis, and calculation of each processing unit in Section 2.
Biodiesel was produced in S1, but not in S2. However, in S2, lipids were
also used in AD to produce biogas. At the same time, ionizing radiation
pretreatment increased the biogas production potential of FW, resulting
in a higher biogas yield than that of S1, thus there was more electricity
and heat output in the CHP unit.
Fig. 5 illustrates the energy input and output of each processing unit
in S1, S2, and S3. It was found that the pretreatment process (U2) of S1
and S2 accounted for the largest proportion of energy consumption
(71–75%), followed by the AD process (U4). Therefore, the vigorous
development and improvement of pretreatment technology is expected
to effectively reduce the total energy consumption and costs. In S1,
because the energy consumption of the hydrothermal pretreatment was
slightly higher than that of the irradiation pretreatment, and the pro­
duction of biodiesel (U3) required additional energy, the total energy
consumption of S1 (151 kWh) was higher than that of S2 (132.8 kWh).
The energy output mainly includes the electric energy and heat recov­
ered from U5 and U7. The total energy recovery of S1 (240.9 kWh) was
lower than that of S2 (337.2 kWh) and higher than that of S3(65.3 kWh).
The net energy output can be obtained by subtracting the total energy
consumption from the total energy recovery. This is also shown in Fig. 5.
Compared with incineration (S3) of FW, AD (S1 and S2) had a higher net
energy output, which is consistent with most research results (Slorach
et al., 2019b). Among the three FW treatment strategies, S2 had the
largest net energy output. According to the emission data of each pro­
cessing unit in Section 2 and the material and energy balance results
introduced above, the main inventory results of each strategy (S1, S2,
and S3) were obtained, as listed in Tables 6–9.
3.2. Environmental impact
In this study, the environmental impact mainly took into account the
consumption of raw materials and energy; environmental emissions; and
credit applied for the displacement of electricity, heat, diesel and tap
water. Fig. 6 illustrates the environmental impact results of treating one
ton of FW, including 18 impact categories. Because the incineration (S3)
of FW produces a large amount of selenium, cobalt, manganese, mo­
lybdenum, and phosphate to be discharged into the water and soil, and
nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and methane enter the atmosphere,
so it has a higher potential in freshwater ecotoxicity (FET), freshwater
eutrophication (FE), human toxicity (HT), marine ecotoxicity (MET),
ozone depletion (OD), and photochemical oxidant formation (POF)
compared with AD (S1 and S2). At the same time, due to the emission of
nitrogen oxides and ammonia in the AD process, the emissions of ni­
trogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and heavy metals in the CHP process, S1
and S2 have higher in fine particulate matter formation potential
(PMFP), terrestrial acidification potential (TAP) and terrestrial ecotox­
icity potential (TETP) than S3. Comparing the environmental impacts of
the three different strategies, S2 had the lowest environmental impact in
14 of the 18 categories, and negative values were obtained for eight
impact categories, indicating net saving in these impacts.
The composition and proportions of the various environmental
9
Journal of Cleaner Production 338 (2022) 130611
impact categories are shown in Fig. 7. They include the environmental
impact of the main treatment process, the avoided burdens of net energy
recovery, and the displacement of water and diesel. It can be concluded
that the environmental credit for energy recovery in S1 and S3 was
lower than that in S2. Both S2 and S1 are based on AD to treat FW, but S2
had a lower value for various impact categories and was more envi­
ronmentally friendly. Although the hydrothermal pretreatment in S1
can effectively separate lipids from FW, the environmental benefits
brought by the displacement of diesel by the produced biodiesel are not
evident. The introduction of ionizing radiation technology in S2 relieved
the inhibitory effect of long-chain fatty acids on the utilization of
organic matter by microorganisms and made the oil available for biogas
production, thereby obtaining more biogas output and increasing the
energy recovery rate of FW. In this study, the data obtained in the lab­
oratory were directly applied to the model, and the differences and in­
stabilities of actual large-scale AD were not considered. Ionization
irradiation equipment requires a large amount of capital investment,
and economical analysis can be performed in follow-up studies.
3.3. Uncertainty analysis
The uncertainty analysis results of the environmental impact
assessment in S2 are presented in Table 10. The variation in the impact
was relatively small. The ranges in HTP, marine eutrophication potential
(MEP), PMEP, POFP and TAP were primarily influenced by the transport
distance and the uncertainty in the emissions from windrow compost­
ing. The uncertainty analysis results of S1 were shown in supplementary
file (Table S4). A low standard deviation suggests that the results are
reliable within the range of the values considered. Therefore, the results
of the basic case can be a good representative of the model, and were
used in this research.
3.4. Comparison of results with other studies
The biogas production capacity of FW rich in lipids was approxi­
mately 263 ml CH4/g VS (Parthiba Karthikeyan et al., 2018), which was
lower than that of S2 (478 ml biogas/g VS was approximately 310.7 ml
CH4/g VS). This indicates that a high lipid content inhibits the pro­
gression of AD. Similar research results were reported by Liu et al.
(2017). Removal of lipids from FW (S1) reduced the biogas production
potential to less than the minimum value of 534 ml biogas/g VS pre­
sented by Xu et al. (2015). In S2, the biogas production potential of FW
(510 ml biogas/g VS) was close to this value.
For S1 and S2, electricity consumption and production were impor­
tant in the overall environmental potential impact. Slorach et al.
(2019b) reported that the range of heat and electricity consumption of
mesophilic AD ranged from 36 to 113 kWh/t waste and from 10 to 44
kWh/t waste, respectively. The corresponding values in S1 were 118.8
kWh/t and 32 kWh/t, respectively. Although there are many LCA studies
of treating FW by AD, it is difficult to directly compare the results of
various studies due to different system boundaries, functional units,
assumptions, and LCA methods. Only limited results are discussed in this
study. For the global warming potential (GWP), fossil depletion poten­
tial (FDP) and marine ecotoxicity potential (METP), the corresponding
resulting values of S2 were − 32.9 kg CO2-eq./t FW, − 19.8 kg oil-eq./t
FW, and − 2.73 kg 1,4-DCB-eq./t FW, respectively. Slorach et al.
(2019b) determined these values to be − 39 kg CO2-eq./t FW, − 22.4 kg
oil-eq./t FW, and − 2.98 kg 1,4-DCB-eq./t FW, respectively. The values
of freshwater ecotoxicity potential (FETP) and urban land occupation
potential (ULOP) in S1 were 0.093 kg 1,4-DCB-eq./t FW and 0.49 m2a/t
FW, respectively, whereas the results in Xu et al. (2015) were 0.14 kg 1,
4-DCB-eq./t FW, and 0.59 m2a/t FW, respectively.
4. Conclusion
Among the three different food waste treatment strategies, the net
X. Fei et al.
energy output of S1 (anaerobic digestion with hydrothermal pretreat­
ment), S2 (anaerobic digestion with ionization radiation pretreatment)
and S3 (incineration) are 89.9 kWh/t, 204.4 kWh/t, 65.3 kWh/t,
respectively. S2 has positive environmental benefits in terms of global
warming, fossil energy depletion, freshwater ecotoxicity, human po­
tential toxicity, marine ecotoxicity, metal depletion, freshwater eutro­
phication, and agricultural land occupation. Compared with S1 and S3,
S2 has 14 categories with the lowest environmental impact potential,
and its environmental credit for energy recovery accounts for a large
proportion of the total environmental impact. Technical and economic
analysis of ionizing radiation pretreatment technology can be carried
out in the follow-up research.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Xionghui Fei: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Visualization.
Wenbao Jia: Validation, Resources, Supervision. Ting Chen: Software,
Resources, Writing – review & editing. Yongsheng Ling: Resources,
Writing – review & editing, Project administration.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (Grant No. NS2020040) and the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant NO.11405086).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.130611.
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