Harnessing Biometahanation for Recycled Water; Environment Protection and Sustainable Development.

1. Harnessing Bio-Methanation for Energy Generation
& Environment Protection.

2. ﷽
َ‫م‬ْ‫ل‬ِ‫ع‬ َ‫َل‬ َ‫ك‬َ‫ن‬‫ا‬َ‫ح‬ْ‫ب‬ُ‫س‬ ‫وا‬ُ‫ل‬‫ا‬َ‫ق‬‫ا‬‫َل‬‫ع‬ ‫ا‬َ‫م‬ ‫ا‬‫َل‬ِ‫إ‬ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬َ‫ل‬َ‫ك‬‫ا‬‫ن‬ِ‫إ‬ ۖ ‫ا‬َ‫ن‬َ‫ت‬ْ‫م‬
ُ‫م‬‫ي‬ِ‫ك‬َ‫ح‬ْ‫ال‬ ُ‫م‬‫ي‬ِ‫ل‬َ‫ع‬ْ‫ال‬ َ‫نت‬َ‫أ‬
Al Quran.–2:32
They said, "Exalted are You; we have no knowledge
except what You have taught us. Indeed, it is You
Who Are The Most Knowing, The Most Wise."

3. Biomelioration
Living in Harmony
with Nature!
Harnessing Bio-
Methanation for
Energy Generation &
Environment
Protection.
Co-
Generation
of Organic
Waste
Bio
Reactor
Methane +
Heat Energy +
Soil
Amendment
Re-Mediated
Water

4. Introduction:
•Most of the world’s public water has
become undrinkable due to sewage
infiltration into groundwater. Unless
something is done now to restore the
environment and curb pollution, the
future will be very challenged in terms
of meeting the world’s water
demands

5. Sewerage Statistics:
• It is estimated that a community of 10,000 people can
generate 40-acre inches of sewage effluent per day
or an equivalent of 1 million gallons of wastewater.
 Sewage: 1 person = 100 gallons pd =
1.46 acre inches pa
 25 persons = 2,500 gallons pd = 8 kWhrs pd
 2.4 kWhrs = 1 x 100 W Bulb = 24 hrs

6. Types of Liquid Waste
• Rural Sewage
• Municipal Liquid Waste
• Agro-Industrial Effluent

7. GOP

8. Definitions:
Environment: Encompasses the Inorganic
Biosphere that we inhabit; the inter-dependent
Organic Life Forms and the Life Supporting
Ecological Systems that have evolved to work in
harmony in order to sustain Life.
Biological: Taken to mean all living
creatures be they zoological or botanical.
Bioenvironmental Management: The
attempt to minimize the impact on the
environment of Biological activity can be
termed as Bioenvironmental Management.

9. Biological amelioration/ remediation or using Biological means to
improve or rectify existing harmful conditions. A more cost effective
method as compared to incineration or physical and chemical
remediation methods.
Biomelioration/ Bioremediation:
The amelioration of our degraded environment is best
carried out by employing biological remedial measures
that are low-cost and ecologically sustainable.
Solid and Liquid Waste is increasingly being
processed by Microbial Agents
(Bioaugmentation) and Plants
(Phytoremediation) to provide recycled water
for aqua, horti and agriculture. Disposal of
waste is more effective where there is partial
recovery of energy and salvageable material.

10. History of Biogas:
• 10th century BC - Used to heat water in
Assyria
• 16th century – Used to heat water in
Persia
• 17th century - Flammable gases found to
be emitted from decaying organic matter
• 1776-1778 – Methane discovered and
isolated by Alessandro Volta.Relationship
between the amount of decaying organic
matter and the amount of flammable gas
produced

11. History, contd.
• 1970s - Energy crisis renewed interest in AD
• 1970s - 80s - Lack of understanding and
overconfidence resulted in numerous failures
• China, India and Thailand reported 50% failure
rates
• Failures of farm digesters in U.S. approached
80%

12. Reasons for Failures:
• Inadequate operator training.
• Management failures.
• Benefits oversold.
• Operations too small to justify digester.
• High costs of Infrastructure.
• Excessive operating costs.
• Unreliable market for biogas.
• Impurity of Gas produced.
• Lack of appropriate microbial inoculation.
• Prevailing Contractor System.

13. What’s Different Now:
• Improved designs and better understanding of O&M
requirements.
• Cogeneration to raise volume of Methane captured.
• High prices for liquid fuel & natural gas.
• Market evolving for biogas energy.
• Microbe culture in Laboratories.
• Methods of scrubbing gas produced along-with
valuable by-products evolved.
• Possibility of deploying Multi-Use, Integrated Plant to
address different problems simultaneously.
• Revolutionary new Low-cost, Low-carbon, Super-
Insulated, Disaster -proof Construction developed in
Pakistan.
• System of CDM/ Carbon Credits created.

14. Advantages.
• The odor potential of a well digested waste is
considerably reduced.
• Further Treatment & Bioaugmentation can
eliminate foul odors.
• Digested waste has slightly less fertilizer
value than non-digested waste, but it is more
readily available to plants. It is simply
converted to a more useful form.

15. Disadvantages.
• A methane digester is large and expensive.
The expense stems from the fact that it must
be well-insulated, air-tight and supplied a
source of heat. The size of a conventional
digester is equal to 15-20 times the daily
waste volume produced.

16. • A very high level of management is required.
• A methane digester can be extremely sensitive
to environmental changes, and a biological
upset may take months to correct. Methane
generation ceases or is very low during an
upset.
• Start-up--usually the most critical phase of
methane generation-is difficult. Methane-
producing bacteria are very slow-growing, and
several weeks are required to establish a large
bacterial population.
• Methane is difficult to store, since at normal
temperatures the gas can be compressed but
not liquefied without special, very expensive
equipment.
• Methane can form an explosive mixture if
exposed to air.

17. Environmental Benefits:
• Reduces odor from land
application
• Protects water
resources
• Reduces pathogens
• Weed seed reduction
• Disease vector control
after digestion
• Greenhouse Gas
reduction

29. • Biological treatment is the most economical waste treatment available.
 In biological systems, the dynamics are
biochemical as opposed to chemical, and
the active agents are living entities.
 Where one would have to increase the
quantity of chemicals proportionally to
deal with a higher load of reactant, in a
biological system the biological additive
can grow to help compensate for
increased loadings.

30. NATURE NURTURES!
We must Nurture
Nature in order to
ensure that it
continues to nurture
US!
21st Century
Challenges have to
be faced with lo-
cost, innovative
and eco friendly,
Hi-Tech.
Interventions.

32. Carbohydrates
Fats
Proteins
Amino Acids
Fatty Acids
Sugars
Carbonic Acid
Alcohols
Hydrogen
Carbon Dioxide
Ammonia
Hydrogen
Acetic Acid
Carbon Dioxide
Methane
Carbon Dioxide
Hydrolysis Acidogenesis Acetogenesis Methanogenesis

33. The Septic System is a Biological Process.
• Like any living thing, it has certain nutritional
requirements to function properly and functions
best in a suitable environment.
 However, the best first step in optimizing
the performance of a septic system is to
have a complete ecosystem of the
organisms required for the most
complete breakdown of the waste.

34. Successful Bioaugmentation Total System
Management
• If the microbiological population can be viewed as
a workforce, then the consultant or system
manager is responsible for keeping the workforce
productive.
• He must maintain the integrity of the microbial
ecosystem.
• The system manager must provide an acceptable
work environment by controlling the key system
managers such as pH, temperature and oxygen
levels.

35. • He has to know when to lay off workers through
wasting to keep the population young and vital.
• The successful system manager knows when to
hire new workers to provide special skills not
found in his workforce.
• Finally, he must compensate them with
nutrients to ensure good growth and a healthy
population.
• Bioaugmentation is the mechanism to provide
these skills workers.

37. Tensegrity is a contraction of tensional
integrity structuring. “Tensegrity
describes a structural-relationship
principle in which structural shape is
guaranteed by the finitely closed,
comprehensively continuous, tensional
behaviors of the system and not by the
discontinuous and exclusively local
compressional member behaviors.

38. The Mongol Tent was named “Ger”,
which gave rise to our Urdu word “Ghar”
and was adapted by the Turks as the
“Yurt”, the source of our language “Urdu”
arising from the plural “Yurtu” or group of
tents.

39. Sizing a Plant:
REQUIREMENTS
Small Large
Single
Chamber
Double
Chamber
Amount & Type
Of Raw
Material Used
Single
Stage
Double
Stage
Artificial
Heating &
Agitation
Multiple
Digesters
Artificial
Heating &
Agitation
Operating Cycle of
the Plant
Size of Digester
Availability of
Raw Material
Suitability of
R aw Material

40. Benefits of Composting:
Serves as the principal storehouse for anions such as nitrates, sulfates, borates,
molybdates and chlorides that are essential for plant growth.
Increases CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity) of soil by a factor of 5 to 10 times
that of clay.
Acts as a buffer against rapid changes caused by acidity; alkalinity; salinity;
pesticides and toxic heavy metals.
Supplies food for beneficial soil organisms like earthworms, symbiotic Nitrogen
fixing bacteria and mycorrihize (beneficial fungus).
Serves as recycling sink for organic waste and green manures (animal manure,
crop residues, household refuse and leguminous plants collected within and
outside the farm) and thus keeps environment clean and hygienic.
Softens the soil by introducing fibrous matter.
Increases soil water retention capacity.
Makes plants more resistant to pests and disease through improved nutrient
availability and uptake, resulting in healthier plants with strong
immune systems.
Prevents soil acidification.

42. UK Estimate:
• If just 5.5 million tons of food waste was treated by
AD we could generate between 477 and 761 GWh
of electricity each year – enough to meet the needs
of up to 164,000 households. Compared to
composting the same amount of food waste,
treating it with AD would save between 0.22 and
0.35 million tons of CO2 equivalent, assuming the
displaced source is gas-fired electricity generation.
But at the moment we only AD 50,000 tons of food
waste each year - 0.4 per cent of the UK‟s food
waste.
ERM (2007), “Carbon Balances and Energy Impacts of the Management of UK Waste Streams”

43. Moving Towards The Future?

44. Conclusion:
• By now, I am sure that all will agree that the
discussed exercise is not only badly needed, it
is also highly desirable and affordable.
• A CMD Project that commands carbon Credits
is the requirement of the day.
• In this manner, given seed money for initial
establishment, a recycling of Capital along with
Socially Generated Waste is made possible.
• In this case we do not have to ask “How much
will it cost, rather ask what will it cost not to
implement the Project?”