Black Soldier Fly Bioconversion System : A Digital Twin Approach

Insect-based bioconversion is an emerging and economically viable approach that could simultaneously solve the global issues on food waste treatment and protein shortage. An essence of insect-based bioconversion is to feed insects on food wastes and then harvest and refine the developed insects into value-added commodities. This is a circular bioeconomic approach that can efficiently upcycle the nutrients and energy in food waste streams back into agricultural supply chains, but the difficulty is how to realize mass production of insects. This paper reports a commercial-scale insect-based bioconversion system using black soldier flies, whose design and development follow a digital twin paradigm. In particular, an industrialized rearing environment has been established, where the larvae growth can be systematically monitored, controlled, and managed to evaluate the overall bioconversion process efficacy. The system has been deployed in a pilot plant, whose Phase I is capable of handling 20 tons of food waste feedstocks per day and has been consecutively operating to date.