Biowaste valorization through anaerobic digestion is an attractive option to achieve both climate protection goals and renewable energy production. In this paper, a complete set of batch trials was carried out on kitchen waste to investigate the effects of mild thermal pretreatment, temperature regimen and substrate/inoculum ratio. Thermal pretreatment was effective in the solubilisation of macromolecular fractions, particularly carbohydrates. The ability of the theoretical methodologies in estimating hydrogen and methane yields of complex substrates was evaluated by comparing the experimental results with the theoretical values. Despite the single batch configuration, a significant initial hydrogen production was observed, prior to methane yield. Main pretreatment effect was the gain in hydrogen production; the extent was highly variable according to the other parameters values. High hydrogen yields, up to 113 mL H2/g VSfed, were related to the prompt transformation of soluble sugars. Thermophilic regimen resulted, as expected, in faster digestions (up to 78 mL CH4/gVS/day) and sorted out pH inhibition. The relatively low methane yields (342-398 mL CH4/g VSfed) were the result of the consistent lignocellulosic content and low lipid content. Thermal pretreatment proved to be a promising option for the enhancement of hydrogen production in food waste dark fermentation. (c) 2019 The Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V.
