Technical, environmental, and economic assessment of anaerobic digestion of pre-treated municipal organic waste for energy production and reuse of liquid digestate

Key Points

• This research investigates the effects of different pre-treatments on biogas production and the environmental and economic aspects of anaerobic digestion.
• Evaluated physical and enzymatic pre-treatments on municipal organic waste.
• Conducted hydrodynamic cavitation to enhance scalability of anaerobic digestion at pilot scale.
• Performed life cycle assessment (LCA) and economic analysis of digestate reuse.
• Physical and enzymatic pre-treatments increased biogas and methane yields significantly.
• The digestate liquid fraction supported L. sativum growth as effectively as mineral fertilizers.
• Economic analysis revealed that physical pre-treatment was the most cost-effective method.