Transforming Fruit and Veg Waste into Energy: A Sonic Solution

Turning your leftover fruits and vegetables into a clean energy source. That's what scientists are exploring with ultrasonic pretreated waste. They're mixing fruit and veg waste with sewage sludge and using anaerobic digestion to produce biomethane. This isn't just about reducing waste; it's about finding an alternative to fossil fuels. The researchers tested different sonication times, from zero to 45 minutes, to see how it affects biomethane production. The longer the sonication, the more methane was produced. They found that 45 minutes gave the highest yield, around 238 milliliters per gram of volatile solids. To understand these results better, they fitted the data with different models like Gompertz and Richards. These models help predict how well the process works. The modified Gompertz and Richards models fit the data well, with an R-squared value of 0. 93. However, the simple Richards model didn't fit as well, with an R-squared of 0. 7. Co-digestion models, which consider both easy-to-digest and complex substrates, fit the data even better. The co-digestion modified Gompertz model had an R-squared of 0. 98, and the co-digestion modified Richards model fit perfectly with an R-squared of 1. Fruit and veg waste has different types of substrates, from simple sugars to complex cellulose. These models account for that, making them useful for predicting real-world scenarios. The goal was to see if these models work well for this mix of waste and to develop better ones for the future.