1569882695

1 AN ESTIMATION OF FOOD WASTE AND ITS CONVERSION TO ENERGY IN

THE SULTANATE OF OMAN

Syed Rashad Iqbal*,Hudhaifa Mazin

Shinas College of Technology
Shinas 324,Sultanate of Oman
rashid_iqbal_786@yahoo.com, hothyfa_mazen@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

Energy is an essential part of any society ,with the passage of time due to more population
and lifestyle we need more sources of energy .Fossil fuel are the biggest source of energy used by
the world. Fossil fuels are limited and the emitted gases by the burning of fossil fuels have very
dangerous effect on our environment. It is very important to fined the renewable energy sources or
clean energy sources which have no negative impact on our environment. Food waste has the
potential to be used as source of energy..By wasting food we are wasting sources of energy. Food
waste has critical effect on our environment, rotting food releases methane gas, which the US
agency (EPA) say is 20 times more damaging to environment than carbon dioxide. This paper
estimates the amount of household food waste (Food waste on plate) in the sultanate of Oman. The
other channels of food waste like in processing, transportation and in restaurants and stores are not
considered in this paper. This paper also estimates the amount of electricity that can be generated
from the food waste by considering the practical examples from the other countries and from the
literature review. According to researchers at Sultan Qaboos university per person for adult’s food
waste on plate is 41 grams and for children average food waste per day is 143 grams per child.
According to the national centre for statistics and information (NCSI) population of Oman is 3.83
million at the end of February 2013.Using the population and food waste information it is estimated
that 245 ton food is wasted each day, and almost 95,000 tonnes food waste per year.
The amount of biogas generated from food waste is estimated using Buswell Equation and
from the literature review. It is also estimated that 42466 Kwh of renewable energy can be produced
per day and can be prevented 90,000 tonnes of wasted food from entering landfills each year.

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569882695

2 INTRODUCTION

Wasted food is an important issue for several reasons. Food requires large amounts of energy
and other resources during production and distribution. If it is wasted it is the wasted of all sources
used to produce the food. There are indications that the amount of food wasted by consumers and
food institution in Europe and USA varies between 15% and 30% of the all purchased food. The
reasons of food waste are also investigated in a study that found that in UK 40% of the food waste
occurred because the household cooked, prepared and served more food than could be consumed.
The 2nd big reason for food wasted is that half of the food wasted occurs because food was not used
at time. [1]
According to UN report almost 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted each year .In the
developing countries almost 40% food is wasted in the production process, storing and
transportation. In the developed countries 40% food waste occurs at the retail and consumer level of
consumption. Anaerobic digestion is the best solution of this wasted food. In the recent years
anaerobic digestion technology has seen a rapid growth of biogas plants around the world, almost
20 to 30 percent increase each year. In 2007, Germany has 3700 biogas plants in operation; Austria
has 323 plants with an electrical capacity of 81 MW. In 2007, china had an estimated 18 million
biogas digesters and in India there are currently over 5 million small scale biogas plants in
operation. [2]
Anaerobic digestion is a naturally occurring process, which has been utilized by humans for the
treatment of biodegradable waste. According to Voiyontas et al., biomass is the most developed
renewable energy source providing 35% of the primary energy needs of developing and 3% of
industrialized countries, respectively. Anaerobic digestion installation requires a considerable
capital investment and it is therefore crucial to have an indication of the potential methane yield
available from the digester feedstock. Research on anaerobic digestion has been taking place for
several years and several technologies have been developed and are continuously developed. The
potential for biogas production depends primarily on the type of biomass consumed by the
anaerobic microorganisms, other parameters influencing the production of biogas is temperature,

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569882695

pH, time allowed for digestion and rate of inflow of fresh biomass into the digester .A number of
techniques are available to estimate potential biogas production such as BMP, dynamic respiration
rate(DR4) and the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) test. [3]

Waste food
The food waste includes uneaten food and food preparation leftovers from residence, commercial.
Establishment restaurants, institutional industrial sources like school, cafeteria, factory, lunch
rooms.
Food waste includes uneaten portions of meals discarded by households or restaurants, any food
substances discarded in the process of sales or distribution, trimmings from food preparation
activities in kitchens and cafeterias, and food products that are thrown away due to degradation in
their quality, damage, rot or the passing of its expiration date. Food waste can be defined as’ Edible
parts of plants and animals produced or harvested for human consumption but not ultimately
consumed by people. Any food which is produced for human but does not reach the human
stomach due to any reason is called food waste.

FOOD WASTED IN OMAN

Food waste is a problem faced by each country in the world for example in USA, food waste is the
single-largest component of the waste stream by weight –American throw away about 43.6 million
tons of food each year.[6] According to UN report we produce almost four billion metric tonnes of
food per annum estimated 1.2-2 billion (30-50%) of all food never reaches a human stomach. In
India 21 million tones of wheat is wasted each year due to inadequate storage and distribution
system. (11)In different countries a lot of food is wasted. In the UK for example 61% of food
wasted by household could have been eaten. (4)
The amount of household food waste is calculated according to the research and survey of sultan
Qaboos University (SQU).

Average food served to adults=600g

Food wasted by adults=41 g per day
Average food served for children= 250g
57% of food wasted the highest for children age 1-5 years and children in the age of 6-18 years
wasted about 56%.
From this data total food wasted in the kitchen or on the plate is calculated.

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569882695

Total population=3.8 million=3800000

Population 0-14=28% and 5-64 of age=68.9%
So food wasted in a day=260 tonn per day,
.
This wasted food is only from household or kitchen wastes, other sources of wasted food are not
considered like transportation and food store process. Total food wasted in a year= 95000 tonnes.
Total food wasted in sultanate of Oman per year= 95000 tonnes per year as estimated .Total waste
produced in Oman is estimated by Oman Environment service Holding Company. According to
Oman Environment Service Holding Company daily total waste(all kinds of waste are included ) is
4700 tonnes is produced in Oman. Total waste per year in Oman is 1.7 million tonnes.
Currently, there are 317 unsupervised and uncontrolled dumpsites and only three engineered
landfills are available in Oman
There is a need to calculate the total food wasted and the total energy wasted in the production of
food. The food waste which is produced in Oman, almost all go to landfill. There is a need to reduce
the amount of waste food to landfill by efficient management. The disposal of biodegrade waste to
landfill can result in the formation of land fill gas and leachate which have negative effect on the
environment. Like in European Union a plan is made to reduce the amount of waste to the landfill.
To control these impacts, the European union (EU) landfill directive (1993/31/EC) came into force
and requires all EU member states to reduce the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill to
35% by 2016.[6]

Technologies to convert Food Waste to Energy

There are two main technologies to process the waste.
1-Non-biological Process
In this technology thermo- chemical process is involved, like heating, direct combustion.
2-Biological process of Food Waste
In this technology biological process are used to treat the food waste like Anaerobic digestion,

Fermentation (yeast and other microorganisms to ferment the sugar of various plants to ethonal)

For food waste mostly anaerobic digestion process is involved. To produce biogas from food waste
and then used biogas to produce energy. By converting food waste to biogas the main aim is
pollution control and energy production. [8]

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569882695

Anaerobic digestion.

In anaerobic digestion, the waste food is collected into tanks-called digesters and adding
bacteria, we can collect the emitted gas to produce energy.The emitted gas is called biogas. Biogas
is about 20% lighter than air and has an ignition temperature in the range of 65 in the range of
650°C to 750°C. It is an colourless gas.[10].The efficiency of anaerobic digestion system is 20-
25%,. Almost 367 m3 of biogas per day per dry tonn can be produced from the wasted food.65% of
this biogas consist of methane, with an energy content of 6.25KWh/m3 of biogas. (1)
It is also preferred for small scale operation to produce energy.

Table -1 Composition of biogas [12]

Component Concentration(by volume)
Methane (CH4) 55-60%
Carbon dioxide (CO2) 35-40%
Water (H2O) 2-7%
Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) 2%
Ammonia (NH3) 0-0.05%
Nitrogen (N) 0-2%
Oxygen (O2) 0-2%
Hydrogen (H) 0-1%

The methane gas is converted to energy.

(16)The whole process for biogas cycle is given below.
Different types of digesters are used to produce the waste food.
1-Single-Stage digester
2-Two- stage digester
3-Two-Phase digester
4-Plug-flow Reactor [8]

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569882695

Fig -1[12]

Estimation of biogas produced from wasted food:

Biogas can be produced from wasted food. Biogas is a major source of energy which is used to
produce electricity and heating. Anaerobic digestion can be used to produce biogas from wasted
food. Biogas contains 50-70% methane and 30-50% carbondioxide. Methane is a part of biogas.
Methane would provide clean fuel. This could substitute fossil fuel derived energy and reduce
environmental impact including global warming and acid rain. [8]The secondary product of the
process is a sludge residue (digestate) that can be directly used as soil amendment or as starting
material for high quality compost preparation. Since the digestate contains significant amounts of
unconverted organic matter, it could be used as fuel for energy production after a drying treatment.
(7)From literature review and with the help of Buswell equation [13] biogas from wasted food can
be calculated.From literature review using the Buswwells equation for food waste of 150 tonns of
food waste. [2]

From 150 tonnes of food waste the CH4 YIELD=55.7 TONNES

So from 260 tonns daily waste food production=91 tones and from total food waste in Oman is
33390 tonns of CH4 yield from 90,000 tonns per year. And CO2 yield from 150 tonn=124.2 tonn at
250c.In the Oman total food waste is 95 thousands tonns so almost 904500, 00 m 3 annually go to

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569882695

Atmosphere. This is the theoretical assumption but experimentally yield of 402m 3/tonn of biogas
can be produced from dry food waste. So in one year 36180000 m3 of biogas can be produced.

Estimation of Energy from food waste:

From literature review by considering practical examples. In a report, Research’s waste to energy
Technology moves from the lab to the market. (www.news.acdavis.edu)Professor Raihong Zhang
has developed such a system called anaerobic digestion system. The anaerobic digestion system is
located at American packaging it will convert 7.5 tons per day of food waste from regional food
producer. The system will roughly generate 1300 Kwh of renewable energy per day and prevention
an estimated 2900 tons of waste from entering the landfill. These kind of projects can lead to better
words.
In Oman daily total kitchen food waste=260tonns,If same type of 24 projects are installed in Oman
roughly per day 4500 Kwh per day energy can be produed from waste food.
Anaerobic digestion process is a best process and it is most suitable method, it is sealed from the air.
1-AD is suited to high moisture materials.
2-AD produces renewable energy in the form of biogas
In different countries AD process is used for waste. For example Germany has 3700 biogas plants in
operating, Austria has 323 plants. In India 5 million small biogas plants are working.
Discussion and Conclusion
The waste of the world is increasing day by day as the population and more facilities of life are
available . All the waste in most of the countries is going to landfill. The main problem with
landfills is the limited space; it cannot consume waste more than its capacity. So the space is less
and waste is more, We need digesters to process the waste into energy.
There are many problems associated with food waste. The disposal of biodegradable waste to
landfill can produce two big problems.
1-Formation of landfill biogas which will have negative impact on the environment.
2-Leachate which can result in adverse Environmental Impact [6]
As total food waste in Oman is 95000 tonns, theoretically total biogas production is 904500, 00 m 3.
And experimentally 361800, 00 m3 of biogas each year. This is only household food waste. Food is
also wasted in the production and transportation and during preparation process as well. There is
need of research work in the sultanate of Oman. The market price of this food waste is not
calculated.

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
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Paper Code. No. 1569882695

According to UN report in the world the cost of food waste is one trillion dollar .The amount of
food waste is 1.3 billion tonns. So cost of 1 Tonn is $770.In Oman annually food waste is 95,000
tonnes. The price of 95,000 tonns of waste food is $ 74million.The resources which are used to
produce this amount of food and sources used for disposal of this food is yet not calculated.[5].The
agriculture sector is responsible for 70% of global freshwater with drawls and 90% of consumptive
water uses.(10) According to UN report the food waste is responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonns
of green house gases to the atmosphere of plant. Similarly 1.4 billion hectars of land- 28 percent of
the worlds agriculture area is used annually to produce a food that is wasted. Almost 870 million
people go on hungry every day.[7]

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[9].Efisio Antonio Scano a,b, Carla Asquer a, Agata Pistis a, Luca Ortu a, Valeria Demontis a,
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