UC Davis

One-third of food waste (FW), or 1.3 billion tons produced globally every year imposes a heavy burden on the future of sustainability and food safety. As a result, global political programs and policies aim to ascertain food security and improve food waste management. This dissertation first reviews and summarizes different Food Waste valorization schemes and describes challenges associated with compounds that have microbial activity, and then highlights the benefits of bioconverting food wastes. The following parts analyze challenges associated with anaerobic digestion of wastewater with high levels of F-29 sanitizer, anaerobic digestion of orange peel with high levels of limonene and biosolarization using amendments composed of different bioactive compound matrices. The biosolarization chapter also describes the effectiveness of this method against pathogens, highlighting the potential to replace chemical treatment of soil. Our findings reveal the efficiency of this green method and can be used to guide future research.