Food waste should have a high value, according to the postdoctoral researcher, Roy Posmanik, as food waste is still carbon.

Food waste is the single largest component going into landfills in the US. Around 1/3 of the world’s food is either lost or wasted, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. For all industrialised nations, food waste roughly accounts for $680 billion annually.

Researchers have shown that by employing hydrothermal liquefaction before anaerobic digestion, you can extract basically all of the energy from food waste which can then be pressure cooked to create a biofuel.

The remaining food waste can then be anaerobically digested by microbes which convert the waste into methane and can be used to produce commercial amounts of electricity and heating.

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