PI: Prof. Munish Kumar Chandel, Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering

Tata Fellow: Mugdha Indurkar (2017-19)

India is facing a major issue of municipal solid waste management due to urbanization and population explosion. Very less amount of waste generated is treated and the remaining is sent to the landfills. The organic waste which is a major fraction of municipal solid waste when dumped into the landfills leads to serious issues such as deterioration of water bodies due to leachate formation, massive fires due to emission of methane as a result of anaerobic conditions, outbreak of diseases, etc. An organic fraction of municipal solid waste is majorly characterised as high moisture content and low calorific value, so biological treatment technologies have proved to be more efficient, especially anaerobic digestion, as the moisture content is very high and would produce gas which can be used as a fuel and by-products which can be used as manure. The technology of anaerobic digestion can be adopted for the digestion of a major fraction of the MSW in India where availability of land for landfilling is a major challenge, and also there is a need to treat huge quantity of solid waste generated daily. The different commercial processes exclusively for anaerobic digestion of MSW have been extensively studied in India and worldwide. Although, a number of plants have been installed, there is no data showing the monitoring of existing plants, whether they are in commission or not.

A detailed survey of biogas plants by visiting the plant has been planned. The study revealed that many of the biogas plants in India are underperforming. The main purpose of the biogas plant visits is to assess the MSW based biogas plants, to understand its design, operational characteristics and challenges faced during its operation. The assessment includes filling out a detailed survey form/questionnaire, sample collection for laboratory analysis and in-depth interviews with the operators, technology providers and end users. It is observed that the problems faced by the plants are somewhat similar and can be broadly classified into socio-economic and operational challenges. The idea is also to compare the working of different plants and come to some conclusions about the best suited designs for particular requirements. Also, a study is being done on a lab scale single phase anaerobic reactor to recycle the effluent back into the reactor, to minimise the fresh water requirement.