A comprehensive review of anaerobic digestion of organic solid wastes in relation to microbial community and enhancement process

Organic solid wastes (OSWs) should be regarded as valuable resources rather than dead end landfill waste that causes public health and odor concerns. Anaerobic digestion (AD) is an ideal approach for managing organic solid waste issues and involves a consortium of anaerobic microorganisms to transform OSWs into useful products. In this review, over 100 publications related to AD of OSWs have been compiled, discussed and analyzed. A comprehensive analysis of the environmental and safety impacts of AD, its key environmental factors, co‐digestion, and pretreatment, as well as the AD of OSWs by various anaerobic microbes uncovered by high throughput sequencing based approaches, have been investigated. The purpose of this review is to provide an outline of the current knowledge of AD processes from a multi‐angle perspective. A comprehensive understanding of AD of OSWs and genome‐enabled biology development could be helpful for providing up‐to‐date knowledge of AD, developing its superiority, overcoming its drawbacks and, ultimately, improving global waste management for more efficient environmental remediation. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved