Korean food wastes have high moisture content (more than 85 wt%) and their major
treatment processes such as drying or biological fermentations generate concentrated
organic wastewater (CODs of about 100,000 mgO
/L). For obtaining both wastewater
treatment and hydrogen production from renewable resources, supercritical water
gasification (SCWG) of the organic wastewater was carried out in this work. The effect of
catalyst, reaction temperature, and reactor residence time on COD destruction and
composition of gas products was examined. As a result, a SCWG of the wastewater over NiY/activated
charcoal at 700
o
2
C, 28 MPa yielded 99 % COD destruction and hydrogen-rich
gas production (45 vol% H
2
). A liquid-phase thermal pretreatment to destroy solid particles
from the wastewater was proposed for more effective operation of the SCWG system.