Food waste biorefinery advocating circular economy: Bioethanol and distilled beverage from sweet potato

Abstract

The exponential growth rate of the global population has been causing a threat to finite resources and also increasing the amount of waste generated. The global quantitative food waste for tubers is 45% per year, which in Brazil would amount to 350,000 tons of sweet potato wasted annually. Food waste causes 10% of the emissions of greenhouse gases. In this work, food waste biorefineries are the proposed solution. Integrated processing via a combination of different technologies to produce both ethanol and distilled beverage was evaluated to valorize sweet potato waste profitably within the circular economy concept. No works concerning the integrated production of both products simulating different real market scenarios were found. Five different scenarios varying the production percentage of each product were evaluated. The higher the production of the distilled beverage, the more profitable the scenarios are. Economic results began to be positive when the production for sale of each product reaches 40%, plus 20% of ethanol for domestic consumption. The scenario with 80% of beverage production presented NPV of US$ 1,078,500.18, IRR of 51%, and discounted payback of 1.06 years. The sweet potato waste biorefinery is a sustainable model and contributes to the development of the agriculture and food sector by providing new businesses and consequent job creation. It also leads to the reduction of greenhouse emissions by producing renewable resources and marketable products, thus reaching the goals of the circular economy.

A systematic review of research on food loss and waste prevention and management for the circular economy

“…The highest number of papers (99) used lab-scale or pilot studies to demonstrate the feasibility of technological innovations to valorise FLWs or enhance the efficiency of current processes (Bosco et al, 2017;Esteban-Gutiérrez et al, 2018;Grillo et al, 2019;Atasoy et al, 2020;Weber et al, 2020), or demonstrate the feasibility of self-sustaining FSC model (Stoknes et al, 2016). Positive results from experiments pave the way for the upscaling potentials, driving the transition towards the CE.…”

Waste management and bioenergy recovery from açaí processing in the Brazilian Amazonian region: a perspective for a circular economy

“…The main advantages of AD technology to a circular economy include cost savings, closing production-to-waste loops, and increasing the reuse and recycling of bioenergy and biomaterial. 37,38 The circular economy is also a conceptual model widely used in waste management, 39 and agroindustrial waste is a feedstock well suited to play a role in sustainable development based on the bioeconomy. 37 With the growing demand for energy, the biogas produced can be a substitute for fossil fuels, reducing environmental impacts and contributing to the energy matrix decarbonization.…”

“…37,38 The circular economy is also a conceptual model widely used in waste management, 39 and agroindustrial waste is a feedstock well suited to play a role in sustainable development based on the bioeconomy. 37 With the growing demand for energy, the biogas produced can be a substitute for fossil fuels, reducing environmental impacts and contributing to the energy matrix decarbonization. 40 Moreover, Brazil is one of the largest producers of agricultural commodities, generating large amounts of solid and liquid waste.…”

A circular economy model for ethanol and alcohol-based hand sanitizer from sweet potato waste in the context of COVID-19

“…The production of bioethanol from biowaste contributes to reducing greenhouse emissions. Also, it leads to the evolution of new business opportunities across the food and agriculture sectors (Weber et al, 2020a).…”