Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Waste and Biomass Valorization https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-019-00630-z ORIGINAL PAPER Performance of Coupling an Aerobic Pre-treatment Prior to a Solid- State Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste Henry Fisgativa 1  · Marie Debled 1  · Anne Tremier 1 Received: 24 September 2018 / Accepted: 16 February 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Abstract An experimental design was proposed to test the infuence of three parameters on the performance of food waste (FW) dry anaerobic digestion (AD) coupled with aerobic pre-treatment: (1) the type of aerobic pre-treatment (no pre-treatment/dynamic aeration/static storage); (2) the composition of FW (paper/no paper) and (3) the frequency of leachate recirculation in the batch leach bed reactor (LBR) used as dry AD process. Performance of AD was assessed by measuring pH, VFA, biogas production and by modelling the kinetics of methane production using modifed Gompertz equation. A statistical analysis of variance showed that AD leachate recirculation condition was the most impacting parameter on methane production. A high production of VFA was noticed (~ 25 gDCO·L −1 ) that did not lead to inhibition due to high bufer capacity of inoculum (5.2 gN-NH 4 + ·L −1 ). 80% of the biomethane potential was reached in the batch test with a daily leachate recirculation and with FW without paper. According to simulations, an experimental duration of 31–32 days showed to be optimal to reach 90% of degradation potential under these LBR conditions. A lower frequency of leachate recirculation or the addition of paper decreased methane production. The introduction of a two-day aeration step stabilized the production of VFA along the digestion process and enhanced the methane production on FW with paper. Conversely a two-day storage step induced a rapid acidifcation and a subsequent signifcant decrease of methane production rate. Keywords Leach bed reactor · Methane kinetics · Gompertz modifed · Paper addition · Static storage · Screening design Statement of Novelty Experimental screening plan is used to study performances of coupling aerobic pre-treatment and dry AD of FW in real- istic conditions and a modifed Gomperz equation is used to model MPR more precisely. Introduction The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) highlights that roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year [1]. In Europe, food waste (FW) production reaches 89 million tons per year, in which France contributes with about 10 million tons [2–4]. In France, the Law on Energy Transition (LOI No. 2015-992, Legifrance) pursues the objective of an increasing recycling of waste with a generalisation of source-sorting of organic waste before 2025. At the same date, 65% of organic waste must be valorised. To reach this valorisation objective, one of the most advantageous technologies is anaerobic digestion (AD) which maximises FW value recovery as energy (biogas) and nutrients (digestate). Nevertheless AD of FW has not yet been fully applied due to technical and biological chal- lenges [5]. Indeed, the high total solids (TS) content of FW (mean value about 23% TS according to Fisgativa et al. [6]) and the content of slowly-biodegradable components Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-019-00630-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Anne Tremier anne.tremier@irstea.fr 1 Irstea, UR OPAALE, 17 avenue de Cucillé, CS 64427, 35044 Rennes Cedex, France