On the pre-treatment of municipal organic waste towards fuel production: a review Online publication date: Wed, 19-Nov-2014
by Bernardo Ruggeri; Milena Bernardi; Tonia Tommasi
International Journal of Environment and Pollution (IJEP), Vol. 49, No. 3/4, 2012
Abstract: Lignocelluloses are the main constituents of municipal organic waste (MOW). In order to increase the production of fuels, via fermentations, the enzymatic hydrolysis is the first step towards a valorisation process. It is well-known that the hydrolysis of lignocelluloses is not very effective because of the high stability of the constituents. In this respect the pre-treatment of MOW is necessary to increase the efficiency of the biological processes. Several pre-treatment processes are reviewed and analysed in the paper and the drawbacks are pointed out. The fundamental scientific features are highlighted and details are given on the technological parameters. The increase in the availability of sugars after pre-treatment seems to be rather high. The necessity of setting up a design procedure and defining scale-up criteria for the full scale pre-treatment of MOW are problems that still need to be overcome in order to extend the technology to MSW treatment field. A pilot plant of adequate potentiality is shown in an attempt to cover this gap.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Environment and Pollution (IJEP):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com
Our Blog 
Follow us on Twitter 
Visit us on Facebook