Food wastes have been collected by volume-rate garbage disposal system in Korea. The collected wastes are required to use in various applications including animal feeding after adding proper nutrients, fertilizer production, or mixing with soil for carbon sequestration. However, these applications have not been successfully implemented. Due to its high contents in moisture, the storage and modification have not been easily made. Through hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) reaction, hydrochar of synthetic food wastes, real food wastes, and food wastes mixed with the wood residue, sewage sludge and algae have been produced. The reaction time and temperature were varied from 210o C to 250o C for 1 hr to 8 hr. The optimum condition for hydrochar production has been determined by the iodine and methylene blue numbers, those are related to the sorption capacity. Physicochemical characterization has been performed to understand the mechanism of hydrochar production with food wastes. The composition variation of synthetic food wastes has been investigated to simulate the real food wastes that may vary from source to source. The instrumental analyses of hydrochar include FT-IR, elemental analysis, BET, SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) images and so on. The prepared hydrochar at the optimum condition has been applied for heavy metal sorption and BTEX removal from the contaminated water and soil. It showed the high sorption capacity on As, Pb and benzene, respectively. The innovative applications of hydrochar may broaden the use of hydrochar in near future.

Hydrochar produced by hydrothermal carbonization reaction of food wastes

247th National Meeting (2014)

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