Soumyajit Chandra, Luhur Akbar Devianto, Soumya Pandit, Dipak A. Jadhav, Bhim Sen Thapa
Agro-food waste, such as banana peel waste, is rich in lignocellulosic biomass and has the potential for sustainable bioenergy recovery. This study established a two-stage process combining dark fermentation (DF) and microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to improve energy yield and evaluate environmental performance. A cellulase-producing Bacillus sp. isolated from cow dung was employed for the biological pretreatment of heat- and acid-treated banana peels to facilitate the efficient hydrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose. The pretreated biomass facilitated DF, producing 3.1 L/L of biohydrogen, which was modeled well by the Modified Gompertz model. The volatile fatty acid–enriched effluent was then used in single-chamber MFCs, producing maximum power densities of 12.02 W/m3 (banana peel substrate) and 11.18 W/m3 (spent DF media). Furthermore, cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) conducted using GaBi software reflected low environmental impact, with a global warming potential of 0.1 kg CO2-eq and minimal effects in acidification, eutrophication, and ozone depletion categories. This study innovates the valorization of banana peel waste using a DF–MFC system combined with LCA, as it proves to be an effective, scalable, and environmentally friendly waste-to-energy approach. Copyright © 2026. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Department of Life Sciences, Sharda School of Bioscience and Technology, Sharda University, U.P., Greater Noida, 201310, India; Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture Technology, Brawijaya University, Jl Veteran, East Java, Malang, 65145, Indonesia; Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, 53233, WI, United States; School of Civil and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, JSPM University Pune, Maharashtra, Pune, 412207, India
