Organic food waste compounds in landfills can heavily pollute the soil, aquifer, and air, mainly due to anaerobic transformation. This paper presents the outcomes of research on the waste separation process and recovery of food waste (FW) using an electrostatic separator. The separation process sorts the charged bodies from the uncharged under an intensive electric field. We studied influences of various parameters such as applied voltage, rotation speed, and electrode angle on the separation process. Results revealed that separation efficiency relies on a uniform electric field and separator configuration. To our best knowledge, this is the first characterization report for food waste recovery using an electrostatic separator.

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is generally disposed of at landfills, and is highly attributed to its simplest and cheapest disposal procedures if compared to other approaches such as incineration [1]. Landfills bring negative impact to the environment due to leachate and biogas emission for biowaste [2]. A high amount of biowaste, particularly food waste, can be found in municipal waste. Approximately 45% of municipal solid wastes are organic food waste, followed by inorganic wastes such as plastics and glass [3]. A comprehensive study of food segregation is thus crucial. Segregation of food from waste results in a reduction of organic decomposition arising in a landfill and thus cuts down the generation of leachate. On one hand, the amount of landfill leachate could be lessened with the rare existence of organic matters. On the other hand, the segregated organic substances can be processed independently for methane gas generation, i.e. a green energy for biogas production [4]. Moreover, incineration of these inorganicfree substances produces less residue and toxic gas.Electrostatic separation provides an effective approach to recovering the reusable matter from solid wastes. It has been widely employed in applications involving the dry separation process, e.g. to recover conductors from non-conducting mixtures [5]. The separation process with a roll-type electrostatic separator sorts the charged bodies from the uncharged under an intensive electric field. It serves as an environmentally friendly way for recycling and reusing the resources without negatively impacting the surroundings [6].Pol. J. Environ. Stud. Vol. 24, No. 3 (2015), [1125][1126][1127][1128][1129][1130][1131] Original Research Optimization of Electrostatic Separation AbstractIn this study, the electrostatic separation process was employed to recover biowaste from waste mixtures. The recovered biowaste is a potential source of alternative renewable energy (e.g. biomass energy). Taguchi's methodology of experimental design was used for a robust design of both system and random factors. Robust design attempts to analyze the influence of respective factors towards the separation process and, meanwhile, limits the negative impact of the hard-to-control random factors. The effects of four factors, namely voltage level, rotation speed, water content, and particle size diameter were determined. It was noticeable that voltage level has a maximum effect (39.44%) on effective recovery of biowaste, followed by size diameter, water content, and rotation speed within design range. On the other hand, the minimal middling product was mostly influenced by the voltage level (79.78%). The water content has a negligible effect (0.78 %) if compared to rotation speed and size diameter. This paper concluded the appropriate operational range to have less error from the variations of noise.

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