NIT-Trichy To Start First Bio-Gas Plant That Will Utilise Food Waste Completely

Sustainable energy has become the need of the hour considering the condition of our natural resources. Moreover, find a usable solution to battle the copious amounts of waste that is generated every day is also a battle for environment warriors. But the very clever people at  The National Institute of Technology, Trichy (NIT-T) have collaborated with  Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Mumbai to set up a bio-gas plant (NISARGRUNA) which is designed to produce bio-gas out of food waste, reports the Times of India. Now that’s what we call a great solution.

Costing Rs.42,20,000, the project is touted to deal with food waste by using the excess food from the institute’s hostel messes as feed for the biogas plant. This will also serve as a great learning experience for the students who will have an opportunity to put their knowledge and understanding into practice, reports the Times of India. The report further adds that the pilot project hopes to demonstrate the benefits of using a bio-gas plant to the villages that college has adopted under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan scheme of Prime Minister of India. Ideally how  a bio-gas plant works is that organic input materials such as foodstuff remnants, fats and sludge are  fed into the bio-gas plant as ‘substrate’.  The substrate is then decomposed by the microorganisms in the absence of light and oxygen. The final product of this fermentation process is bio-gas with methane as the main ingredient. Once the substrate has been fermented, it is transported to the fermentation residues end storage tank.The residues can be utilized as fertilizer for agriculture. The bio-gas generated in the process is burned to generate electricity and heat, reports Weltec Biopower. While the BARC is providing the necessary funding to undertake this ground-breaking project, NIT-T will be providing the manpower and resources for five years. The report also states that NIT-T is the first institution in Tamil Nadu to sign an MOU that facilitates the joint establishment of the DAE Technologies Display and Dissemination Facility (DTDDF) center at NIT-T. The initiative aims to  promote various technologies developed by the BARC, reports the Times of India. Creating indigenous solutions to improve environmental sustainability is of substantial importance because  no one understands the problems that plague our country better than ourselves. And if environment-friendly options can be made cheaper, perhaps it would have more takers . Moreover, such innovative projects encourage other young people to rise up to the occasion and make a difference themselves because it is their future that is at stake. To read the complete report by Times of India, click here. Feature Image Courtesy of Thamizhpparithi Maari, via Wikimedia Commons