Pune: Each year both Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporations spend crores of rupees annually to remove hyacinth from the Mula, Mutha and Pavana rivers. However, there seems to be a ray of hope for these civic bodies.
A Pimpri-Chinchwad-based researcher, Gaurav Nahar is in the process of developing a biofuel using the hyacinth. He is trying to produce hydrogen and methane from water hyacinth, which would help reduce use of fossil fuels. Nahar said the hydrogen produced from the process will fuel clean energy generation devices i.e. fuel cells which exhibit double efficiency compared to the current power generation devices like IC engine.
Nahar told Sakal Times that he is carrying out this research for last three years and it is in the research and development process.
“The project is part of a joint Indo-UK collaboration involving the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, Vishwabharati University of Kolkata and Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. The technology will soon be scaled up on a pilot project basis.” He said from per kg of hyacinth 70 per cent of methane gas can be produced along with hydrogen, nitrogen, hydrogen sulphide and
carbon dioxide.
With a doctorate in chemical engineering from UK, Nahar said methane (CH4) gas produced from hyacinth by fermentation or microbial technology will be converted to hydrogen.
Nahar said, “Water hyacinth is aquatic invasive species and it grows on a large scale. Activists remove it and it ultimately goes in the landfill. Leachets start forming in it and soil gets contaminated and it penetrates into groundwater, contaminating it. Instead of contaminating the soil and groundwater, water hyacinth can be converted into renewable energy which can replace fossil fuel. Hydrogen gas is the fuel of the future. It is not source dependent, rather it is an energy carrier as it is a basic building block of everything in the universe.”
Nahar said there are two methods to produce hydrogen water hyacinth. In the first method, the hyacinth can be converted to hydrogen and methane via two stage fermentation process via microbial technology.
In the second method the methane produced in single stage fermentation is converted to hydrogen via autothermal reforming process which is being developed by the company. Nahar worked on the autothermal reforming process for generation hydrogen from bio-fuels like biodiesel and biogas during his PhD research at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Both methods of hydrogen production are being developed by his company to determine the optimum process and deploy them based on the end user requirements.
Nahar also uses food waste, elephant grass (Napier grass) and Congress grass (Parthenium hysterophorus) for production of renewable hydrogen or methane. Since water hyacinth is seasonal, production of hydrogen and methane should not come to a stop therefore food waste along with elephant grass and Congress grass are used. The developed process efficiently uses variable feed to generate hydrogen or methane.
