Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Despite the ongoing LPG crisis in the country, IIT Bombay’s canteen has remained operational, thanks to a patented biomass gasification technology that uses fallen leaves from its expansive campus. The initiative has recently generated significant interest.
Professor Sanjay Mahajani from the Department of Chemical Engineering, who is also the Professor in charge of the Green Energy and Sustainability Hub at the institute, took India Today through the facility that has the potential to be used commercially. Those associated with the pilot project have been getting enquiries from many institutions around the country.
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Professor Mahajani said that the institution has extensive green cover, so the project, which initially started in 2014 to manage this waste, has substantially grown into a full-fledged sustainability initiative.
FROM FALLEN LEAVES TO FUEL PELLETS
According to Professor Mahajani, the fallen dry leaves and twigs are collected from around the campus and turned into pellets. Even unusable plastic material has also been experimented upon and used to make pellets that are then gasified.
Others who helped Professor Mahajani with this project include Dr Sujeet Deore, Post-Doctoral Fellow at IIT Bombay and Co-founder of Infixen Energy Pvt Ltd, who has patented a premix burner for the gasifier. Prabodh Gadkari, Co-founder of Infixen Energy Pvt Ltd, and Professor Sandeep Kumar, Faculty Advisor from the Energy Science and Engineering Department, have also worked on this project, wherein Professor Mahajan patented the gasifier design.
The pellets are then heated to a very high temperature, during which part of the biomass is burnt. Pointing to a large cylindrical setup outside the canteen, Professor Mahajani explained that if the pellets are directly burnt, they would create a lot of smoke.
But inside the setup, at very high temperatures, partial biomass gets converted into gas, and then the gas goes to another compartment where steam is generated, which ultimately goes to the canteen kitchen.
The cooking in the canteen is done on steam, and for the same, a portion of the kitchen’s gas interface has been modified for the steam system.
PLAN TO EXPAND GASIFIERS TO HOSTELS
Professor Mahajani said that upscaling the gasifier to ensure that it serves all the 13,000 students living on the campus and at least half that number of staff members is in the plans of IIT Bombay, which requires about 200 LPG cylinders every day on average.
“Every new thing that you want to implement at a community level, you have to be careful. So the idea was to run it for almost one year continuously. Do safety audits, look at the operational convenience, see if there are any issues and if the cooks are happy. I think now we have more or less achieved this,” said Professor Mahajani.
“We now have the confidence, and our dean has permitted us to install this gasifier in one hostel that is at least 3–4 times bigger than this gasifier, and once we run it for a few months, then we are going to install six such gasifiers at other hostels. If we get more waste, we will be happy,” he added.
– Ends
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
