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Mumbai - Bio Gas Plant
Bio-gas Plant at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Sharad Kale, Professor of Soil Sciences in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre designed the ‘Nisargruna’ bio-gas technology which is being used in about 20 places in and around Mumbai. The name ‘Nisargruna’ translates as “repaying nature’s loan. Conventional biogas plants can only process human waste and cow dung but the Nisargruna plants can process all biodegradable waste. A 'Nisargruna' plant takes between 18 to 22 days to digest organic solid waste. The plant at the Tata Institute processes up to one ton of wet waste each day and cost X rupees to set up. Large scale operations have been tested but not successfully.
Converting waste into biogas has many advanatages - large amounts of wet waste don’t have to be transported and deposited in landfill sites, good quality manure is produced and methane gases are reduced as large amounts of food waste aren’t left to rot at dumpsites. The biogas itself can be used as a fuel for heating or to generate electricity and as waste is segregated at source working conditions are improved for the people that work with the waste.
The plants work in the following way. The waste is first segregated to remove the non-biodegradable material before it’s pulverised in a mechanical mixer by adding equal amounts of water.
The slurry is passed on to a pre-digester tank where hot water (heated with the help of a solar heater) is added. This process kills all disease-causing and unwanted bacteria and allows growth of high temperature-tolerant bacteria. These bacteria bring about quicker breakdown of the waste.
Even more good news for India is that the ‘Nisargruna’ is now eligible for carbon credits as set out in the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon credits are awarded to any technology that helps effectively bring down carbon emissions.
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