Techno-economic assessment of potato waste management in developing economies

The warming climate results in higher losses in potato production, storage and processing, especially in developing countries. Feeding, anaerobic fermentation, combustion, composting and charring of potato peels with reject potatoes were analyzed on a pilot scale. It was revealed that feeding is the most promising alternative; however, additional energy inputs for potato waste steaming are advisable to break down trypsin inhibitors that naturally decrease protein digestibility. Other results indicate that it is advisable to ferment the slurry obtained with post-harvest residues into biogas and subsequently pyrolyze dewatered fermentation residues into biochar. It is appropriate to subsequently enrich the biochar by the liquid fraction of fermentation residues via filtration. Enough indications was found that this setup provides multiple horizontal synergies as well as parallel synergies, both technical and economic, that altogether create prerequisites for sustainability of developing agriculture. Graphic abstract