StudentsSymposium

Abstracts

Date:28thAugust2010 CSTSeminarHall

CentreforSustainableTechnologies IndianInstituteofScience

StudentSymposium2010
CentreforSustainableTechnologies IndianInstituteofScience Date:28August2010 Venue:CSTSeminarHall
Time 08:3009:15 09:1510:00 10:0010:45 10:4511:00 11:0011:45 11:4512:30 12:3013:15 13:1514:30 14:3015:15 15:1516:00 16:0016:15 16:1516:40 16:4017:05 17:0517:30 17:3017:55 17:5518:20 Title Mechanismtocontrolfluoridereleasefrom Phosphogypsumusingflyash Iodideretentiononmodifiedclaymaterials Optimalbiologicaltreatmentofurbanwastewater Tea Hydrogenproductionthroughbiomassgasification Experimentalandmodellingstudiesofproducergasbased turbochargedsparkignitedreciprocatingengines InvestigationintotheIntegrabilityofBuildingIntegrated Photovoltaics(BIPV)forTropicalConditions Lunch CarbonandNitrogenflowinMunicipalSolidWaste Utilisationofindustrialandminewastesinmortarand concrete Tea ThermalTransmittancestudiesintoConventionaland AlternativeBuildingMaterials Spatiotemporalanalysisformonitoringurbangrowth UseofZerovalentIron(ZVI)fornitrateremoval Nutrientrecoveryfromtreatedwastewaterandbiogas slurrybyalgalcultureponds ConversionofBiomasstoLiquidFuel FischerTropsch Synthesis SandeepKumar AnandShivapuji GayathriA.G. Presentationby K.Asha SivaChidambaram DurgaM.Mahapatra

Shwetmala UllasSN

BalajiN.C BharathH.Aithal MaliniR. PriyankaMurthy SneheshShivananda

Mechanism to control Fluoride release from Phosphogypsum Using Fly ash

Asha.K1, Sudhakar M. Rao2
1

Research Student, Centre for sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science

asha@cst.iisc.ernet.in
2

Professor and Chairman, Centre for sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science

Fly ash (FA) and Phosphogypsum (PG) are two industrial waste products generated in India in huge amounts. Phosphogypsum is generated as a solid by-product in the "wet process" for the production of phosphoric acid. Phosphogypsum by-products are chiefly composed of calcium sulfate. Additionally they contain silica, alumina, iron oxides, phosphorous oxides and fluorides. It is estimated that for every tonne of phosphoric acid manufactured, 5 tonnes of PG is produced as by product which is currently being land filled. Fly ash is the residue generated in the combustion of coal in thermal power plants. About 150 million tonnes of fly ash is produced in India annually. As a strategy for re-use of waste materials, both FA and PG are extensively being used in civil engineering and agricultural applications. An important aspect of re-use of waste materials is to ensure that they do not release any toxic elements to the environment. This study examines the environmental impacts of fly ash and PG pertaining to release of toxic elements in standard leach tests. Chemical analysis of FA is performed and it is observed that the sum of SiO2, Al2O3 and Fe2O3 is more than 70% classifying the material as CLASS F type fly ash according to ASTM C618-08. PG characterization shows the material is highly acidic and contains 85 % of CaSO4.2H2O. Water leach test and TCLP (Toxicity characterization leaching Procedure) shows fluoride of 21 mg/L and 28 mg/L respectively being released from landfill sites where PG is stored. High levels of fluoride in drinking water may cause dental and skeletal fluorosis. Likewise the pH of potable water is also regulated and should range between 6.5 and 8.5. Leaching of acids and fluorides from phosphogypsum dumps could therefore lower the pH of groundwater and elevate the fluoride concentration beyond permissible limits (1.5 mg/L). Leaching of PG under acidic and alkaline conditions is performed to understand the potential of fluoride release to the environment. Experiments are performed to mitigate the fluoride release from PG. In the first set of experiments, lime stabilization of PG is examined. The alkaline pH (12.2) created by lime addition was expected to chemically fix the fluoride. Batches of PG mixed with various amounts of lime (8 %, 12 %, 16 % and 20 % on dry mass basis of PG). The PG-lime mix is agitated for 18 hours. The mixture is then filtered and analyzed for Fluoride. Results revealed that addition of lime did not contribute to the chemical fixation of fluoride. Hence a pozzolan-Fly ash was introduced in the system. 30 % FA and 70 % FA was mixed with 2.5 % and 5.0 % PG and varying amounts of lime and kept for various time period of 3, 7, 14 and 28 days to study the kinetics of fluoride reduction. Results showed that the fluoride reduced from 21 mg/L to 1.35 mg/L due to formation of fluorite mineral and entrapment of fluoride in cemented matrix. Experiments performed to ascertain the fluoride fixation by lime-pozzolona-PG reactions in the compacted state as well. Key Words: Fly ash, Phosphogypsum, Fluoride, Characterization, Leaching.

Iodide Retention on Modified Clay Materials

Sivachidambaram.S 1, Sudhakar M. Rao2
1

Research Student, Centre for sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science

sivani@cst.iisc.ernet.in
2

Professor and Chairman, Centre for sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science

Clays are important constituent of high level radioactive wastes repository (HLWR) because of their very low hydraulic conductivity and high adsorptive capacity for contaminant ions. Bentonite is currently investigated as possible geotechnical barrier in repository concepts for HLWR. Due to negative surface charge clays like bentonite repels anions. Improving anion retention behavior of bentonite is important in limiting anionic contaminants and their transport in soil systems. Iodine-129 (I-129) is a fission product from nuclear power plant which is hazardous to biological systems and has long half-life (1.59 x 107 yrs). Clay based organic-inorganic materials have been investigated to improve anion retention behavior. Long-chain organic polymers though can improve the anion adsorption capacity of bentonite; they would also exchange the inorganic interlayer cations (S.Dultz, J.Bors., 1999). Kaolinite (1:1 type clay mineral) is frequently used as host materials for the formation of claypolymer nanocomposites (Szilvi et al., 2004). Daniels and Rao (1983) have found that silver treated metakaolinite had excellent sorption capacity for iodide ions. We show that silver treated kaolinite (silver-kaolinite) can be used as an ad-mixer to bentonite with enhanced iodide retention capacity. A silver-kaolinite compound was prepared by controlled hydrothermal reaction, which is an attempt to prepare an admixture to improve anion retention of nuclear waste repository buffer and backfill materials, especially Iodide retention behavior of bentonite. The silver oxide (Ag xO) compound is incorporated on kaolinite surface by heating the kaolinite and AgNO3 at 400C.The mechanism of silver retained by kaolinite was examined using X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal analysis, infra-red spectroscopy(IR), Xray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) and Electron probe micro analysis(EPMA) measurements.The silver-kaolinite was mixed with bentonite. Batch experiments were performed for iodide retention on silver kaolinite, 10% and 20% silver-kaolinite mixed bentonite sampes.Fig.1, 2 are Showing iodide retention capacity of silver-kaolinite and silver-kaolinite mixed with bentonite samples. The iodide retention capacity of silver-kaolinite was 58-65meq/100g. On comparison, the anion retention capacity of silver-kaolinite was higher than kaolinite (1-5 meq/100g). The silver kaolinite mixed bentonite samples were shown drop in zeta-potential to increasing iodide concentrations (fig.3.). Its evident that the bentonites anion repulsion behavior is not influencing the silver-iodide formation and This supports that silver-kaolinite can be a candidate ad mixer to buffer backfill material (bentonite) to retain radioactive iodide .

Fig.1. Iodide retention behavior of silver-kaolinite with varying initial iodide concentrations
14 meq of iodide/g of silver kaolinite mixed bentonite 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 50 100 150 300 500 750 Intial concentrations of iodide (ppm) 20% silver-kaolinite+80% bentonite 10%silver-kaolinite+90% bentonite

Fig.2.Iodide retention behavior of silver-kaolinite mixed samples with varying initial iodide concentrations

0 -5 Z e ta -p o te n tia l(m V ) -10 -15 -20 -25 -30 -35 -40

Concentration of iodide in sodium iodide solution (ppm) 100 300 500 750 1000

bentonite

10%silver-kaolinite+90% bentonite 20%silver-kaolinite+80% bentonite

Fig.3.Zeta potential values of bentonite and silver-kaolinite mixed samples at varying concentrations of iodide in the sodium iodide solution References Dultz. S, Bors. J (1999) Retention of radio nuclides by organophilic bentonite. Engineering Geology, 54, 195-206. Szilvi et al. (2004) Synthesis and characterization of noble metal nanoparticles/kaolinite composites. Progr. Colloid Polym. Sci., 125, 8895. Daniels, E. A. and Rao, S. M. (1983). Silver sorption by kaolinite. International Journal of Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 34, 981-984. Daniels, E. A. and Rao, S. M. (1983). Silver sorption by metakaolinite from molten silver nitrate. Zeitschrift fur Physikalische Chemie Neue Folge, 137, 247-254.

Optimal biological treatment of urban wastewater

Durga Madhab Mahapatra
Centre for Sustainable Technologies Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore durgamadhab@cst.iisc.ernet.in

Water bodies have traditionally been used for domestic and irrigation purposes. During the last 50 years, unplanned urbanization, coupled with ad-hoc approaches in natural resources management, has led to the degradation of ecosystems. Water bodies are being used to dispose untreated sewage, which has enriched the system with nutrients leading to eutrophic status which poses a serious threat to the quality and very existence of life. The present work focuses on one of the urban wetlands in Bangalore, and involves characterization (physico-chemical, biological analysis) of the water body as well as assessing the treatment capabilities in terms of BOD removal, nutrient assimilation potential and self remediation potential. The analysis indicated organic pollution, showing domestic sewage as the major source. Near the inlet reaches, anaerobic condition prevail and this is evident from the low dissolved oxygen (zero mg/l) and negative redox potential (-220 mV). This condition progressively improves towards the outlets due to aeration. The performance of the lake was found to be good in the monsoon season, reducing the BOD up to 50% (<30 ppm filtrable) and also N and P. However efficiency of the treatment was highly reduced by the interference of floating macrophytes that covered the major portion of the lake during the warm season. There was a significant change in the community structure and dominance of microalgal assemblage which correlated with the gradient in oxic environment. Bacterias were dominated by coccus at inlets compared to the outlet. Alkalinity, TDS, conductivity and hardness values were higher when compared to earlier studies. This investigation reveals of lake functioning as an anaerobic-aerobic lagoon treating the wastewater to a considerable extent.

Hydrogen production through biomass gasification

Sandeep K.
Centre for Sustainable Technologies Indian Institute of Science Bangalore 560 012

sandeepk@cgpl.iisc.ernet.in Over 96% of Hydrogen production is done through steam reformation or gasification of fossil fuels. However, these methods are not sustainable and environment friendly. Biomass can be used as a potential sustainable resource for hydrogen production through gasification process. Thermo-chemical conversion of biomass generates producer gas (PG) through oxidation and reduction process. The complex process converts solid biomass to gaseous fuels. Significant work on biomass gasification using air as the medium has been done which generates PG with CO (16-22%), H2 (16-20%), CO2 (7-13%) and Nitrogen (4550%). It also contains a small percentage of methane (CH4), traces of soot (particulates) and tar. The proposed methodology suggests gasification using oxygen and steam as gasifying agent. Compared to air gasification, it enhances the hydrogen fraction in output gas (Syngas) by removing the nitrogen from the system and adds extra hydrogen through inducing steam as gasifying agent in the system. Increasing the hydrogen fraction is essential towards improving the hydrogen separation efficiencies. Research towards oxy-steam gasification for hydrogen generation using a down draft gasifier configuration is in progress. Experiments with different oxygen to steam ratio and steam to biomass ratio have been studied. The effect of temperature and residence time has also been looked at. The gasification medium is superheated steam and oxygen as oxidizing and gasifying agent. The experimental setup includes scaled down downdraft gasifier in which oxygen is supplied at different position and steam at around 8000C is injected in the oxidation/combustion/reduction zone. 70 gm of H2 has been generated per kg of biomass at a steam-to-biomass ratio (molar basis) of 1.4. The work outlines the results from the equilibrium analysis and compares with the experiments. Influence of various process parameters like temperature, mass flux rate, oxygen/steam ratio and steam/biomass ratio is being studied. System design, energy efficiency and processes for optimum hydrogen production will be presented. Packed bed air gasification modeling studies is extended to oxy- steam gasification to understand various processes taking place inside the reactor is in progress. The aim is to predict the syngas composition under various operating conditions.

Experimental and Modeling Studies of Producer gas based Turbocharged Spark Ignited Reciprocating Engines
Anand M Shivapuji
Centre for Sustainable Technologies Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India anandms@cst.iisc.ernet.in

Impending crises due to fast exhausting petroleum based fuel resources and the serious environmental degradation caused due to their over exploitation have lead to an increased focus on alternative fuel resources. Biomass derived gaseous fuels are of heightened interest owing to their near carbon neutrality and clean burning due to gaseous nature. Among the biomass derived gaseous fuels, Producer gas, a product of thermo chemical conversion of biomass has been in focus for many decades with significant impetuous being placed in the past couple of decades for the use of the same in engine applications. Producer gas as a fuel for spark ignited internal combustion engines has been well established over the past couple of decades. Efforts towards increasing the efficiency of producer gas based engines has called for operating the engine at higher compression ratios while efforts towards increasing the specific power of the engine calls for turbo charging the engine. Operation of an engine at higher compression ratio and under turbocharged conditions generally gets restricted by the knocking tendency of the engine owing to the enhancement of the severity of conditions prevailing during the heat release phase. Literature review has indicated successful operation of producer gas fueled spark ignition engine operation at higher compression ratios with the success being attributed to the presence of hydrogen in the fuel. Some discrepancies however have been noted at compression ratio 17 in previous in-house studies. At CR 17, though no obvious knock like characters are visible on the pressure vs crank angle diagram, however pressure rise rates reaching as high as 15. Recent studies at MIT have indicate 10 Bar/Deg based on audible signs as the peak pressure rise rate beyond which an engine is said to be knocking. Structural studies on the engine however put a much sever limitation on the permissible pressure rise rate restricting it to less than 5 Bar/Deg. Various thermodynamic models have been developed in an attempt to predict knock in an engine with the prominent begin Wiebe function based models and induction time based models. The primary drawback of these models however is that they are all based on experimental results with the Wiebe model making use of the mass burn curve and the induction time based model making use of the induction time integral again based on experimental results. This aspect makes them specific to certain engine specification(s) and a narrow range of operating conditions due to which they fail to be broad based. Towards addressing this issue, a chemical kinetics based model has been developed that depends on the evolution of chemical species making it engine specification independent. The current model developed successfully captures the complete operation of a Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition engine. The same model is sought to be extended to capture flame propagation in an engine thereby extending the capabilities for a full spark ignited engine simulation. On the experimental front, the engine behavior under naturally aspirated and turbocharged conditions is being studied using an advanced data acquisition system at different operating conditions of the engine. The focus of experiments is significantly higher on the turbocharged conditions since very little work has been reported with producer gas operation under turbocharged conditions.

Investigation into the Integrability of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) for Tropical Conditions
Gayathri A G
Centre for Sustainable Technologies Indian Institute of Science Bangalore 560 012 gayathri@cst.iisc.ernet.in Indias geographical location renders it with ample solar-energy potential ranging from 4 - 7 kWh/m2 daily and 2,3003,200 sunshine hours annually. Solar energy, if appropriately harnessed, carries adequate potential to support the growing energy demands of Indias burgeoning and scattered population. Onsite distributed power generation (or harnessing) using solar is seen as a sustainable green alternative as it produces quality electricity on-site very close to the demand points which can improve energy efficiency and reduce electrical distribution losses. They are also easy to maintain and any breakdown results in only localized downtime and grievances that are relatively easy to address. A distributed BIPV system not only offers energy savings but also carry much lower ecological footprint. Given the diverse nature of human settlements (scattered low-rise to dense high-rise) in India, one of the unexplored avenues of harnessing solar energy is electricity generation using Photovoltaics (PV). PV is viable for onsite distributed power generation offering advantages of size and scale variability, modularity and integration into buildings. Building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are PVs integrated as the building-envelope, viz., walls, faade, fenestration, roof and skylights. The prime function of a building is to provide (natural) indoor thermal-comfort for conducive working/living conditions, with the building envelope acting as the interface regulating the thermal interaction between the external and indoor environment. PV integration for maximum harnessing of solar energy depends on its configuration, viz., solar exposure (slope and orientation), system sizing, wind patterns, dust conditions, and maintainability. These factors need to be intertwined with appropriate climate-responsive building design. In addition, given current performance efficiencies for various PVs and high initial cost, it is also crucial to ascertain PVs ability to support societal energy demands. Thus, BIPV integrability would require addressing, concurrently, design requirements for energy-efficient building performance, effective PV integration, and societal feasibility. In this light, it is crucial to scientifically evaluate the integrability of BIPV for Indian conditions by taking a city as a case study.

Carbon and Nitrogen flow in Municipal Solid Waste

Shwetmala
Ph.D. Student Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science
shwetmala@astra.iisc.ernet.in

Research supervisor: Dr. T.V. Ramachandra and Dr. H.N. Chanakya Heterogeneous mixture of materials generated from house-hold, commercial and business places in urban area which does not have any further use to the society is often referred as Urban Solid Waste or Municipal Solid Waste. It includes all waste collected from residential, commercial, institutional and municipal services. The per capita generation and its composition vary from one country to another country; there is no standard composition across the World. Indian cities waste consists of a high percentage of fermentables (70-75%) along with plastics, paper, metals and inert materials. Usually the recyclable materials or reusable materials get separated by waste generators or by rag-pickers and ultimately wastes are left with high percentage of organic matter. In India, few places have waste treatment facilities, but open dumping is common practice of waste disposal, which has several adverse environmental impacts. Degradation of organic waste in environment emits Green House Gases (GHG) like Methane (CH4) and Nitrous oxide (N2O) along with leachate containing Carbon and Nitrogen impacts to the water bodies and soil. Composting (aerobic) and biomethanation (anaerobic) are available biological treatment technologies for organic waste management. In aerobic environment Carbon and Nitrogen gets converted into Carbon dioxide and Ammonia while in anaerobic environment, it gets converted into Carbon dioxide, Methane and Ammonia. The Carbon and Nitrogen gets transformed from fermentable solid waste either to volatilized gaseous emission or with the leakage in form of leachate and if decomposition takes longer time then it remains in solid form. Yet, these loses through volatilization depend on Carbon availability, compost moisture, temperature and aeration. The knowledge of Carbon and Nitrogen flow in the environment is necessary in the case of with a comparison to other processing techniques. Few studies are available where controlled Nitrous oxide emissions have been quantified from landfill sites or from compost plants. However this aspect has become more acute for Indian wastes which consist of more organic waste and as of now no studies have quantified and modeled the system. The objective of this research work is to quantify and make a comparative analysis for the Carbon and Nitrogen flow in different Municipal Solid Waste Management approaches. This knowledge would aid to minimize or divert the Carbon and Nitrogen flow from waste to the environment and hence minimize the impacts of Municipal Solid Waste on the environment. Key words: Solid waste, Carbon and Nitrogen flow, aerobic, anaerobic, modeling.

Utilisation of industrial and mine wastes in mortar and concrete Ullas S N

Ph.D. Student Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science ullas@civil.iisc.ernet.in

Construction industry is one of the fastest growing industry in India. Ever increasing population demands various construction needs in large scale which consumes significant volume of natural resources and energy at an alarming rate. The consequence is construction industry is contributing about 22% of Green House Gas emissions in to the atmosphere. Concrete and mortar are of considerable volume in any structure and consumed in bulk quantities for the construction of buildings, roads and other infrastructure projects. Sand as fine aggregates is one of the basic ingredients in concrete and mortar. Sand is mined from river beds and streams. Indiscriminate mining of river sand has serious adverse impact on environment and hence sand mining has been controlled and even banned in many locations. This has resulted in acute shortage of sand supply which has made sand as expensive construction material. In order to address this, alternatives to river sand are being explored by manufacturing sand through crushing of rocks which is highly energy intensive process. Utilization of mine and industrial solid wastes for building products and applications is an emerging area. In the present study, Kuduremukh iron ore tailings is chosen for investigation of its suitability as fine aggregates in concrete and mortars. The quantity of tailings stored in Lakya dam is to the tune of about 200 million tonnes. If found suitable, this tailing can meet the sand demand of Bangalore city for 30-40 years assuming the present consumption rate of sand in Bangalore city. With this background, about 10 tonnes of tailings have been collected from various points of the storage dam and transported and stored in the campus. Various physical and chemical analyses have been framed and experimentations are in progress to investigate characteristics of the tailings for its suitability to be used as fine aggregates in masonry mortar and concrete. The experimental investigations conducted so far have given promising results in successful utilisation of iron ore tailings to a considerable tune to replace natural river sand.

Thermal Transmittance studies into Conventional and Alternative Building Materials

N.C.Balaji
Research Scholar Centre for Sustainable Technologies Indian Institute of Science balaji_nc@yahoo.co.in

A numerous studies towards the physical properties of the energy efficient construction materials are available today (eg. Adobe, Soil-cement blocks, fly ash blocks etc.) but thermo-physical properties of such materials are very scanty or no experimental data is available in Indian context. Nowadays, energy efficient materials are becoming very popular as they are extremely versatile and durable. These construction materials are being widely used in the structure of residential buildings, factories and multistorey building to provide better indoor thermal-comfort for working/living conditions of the occupants. As we know, with the use of low thermal transmission materials in the construction, better thermal comforts can be achieved. The objective is to understand the role of building masonry elements in regulating the thermal-response of the building, thermal transmittance/loss through walls and indoor thermal comfort by conducting experimental and theoretical studies by addressing current interest in low-energy buildings in housing: energy, environment, economy and sustainable development. The hot box test apparatus is suggested to find out thermal transmittance of these construction materials. The available numerical models for the thermal transmittance can be validated though they obtained experimental results, and can correlate the same. At the same time the performance of the energy efficient building materials can be studied, through the different configurations of the building materials together as a system.

Spatio -Temporal Analysis for Monitoring Urban Growth

Bharath H Aithal
Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India bharath @cst.iisc.ernet.in

Research Supervisors: T.V Ramachandra & D.S Durgappa Urbanization involves a complex set of economic, demographic, social, cultural, technological, and environmental processes that result in an increase in the proportion of the population of a territory/area that lives in towns and cities, an increased concentration of population in the larger settlements of the territory, and an increasing density of population within urban settlements. Urbanization is the most dramatic form of irreversible and most dominant land use transformation. Though urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon, it is especially prevalent in most parts of India, where urban areas have experienced a high rate of growth and consequent land cover changes over the last Decade. Demographic processes of immigration and migration, as well as natural population growth, are important determinants of urbanization. In this uncontrolled situation, city planners lack tools to measure, monitor, and understand urban sprawl processes. Multi temporal remote sensing data have become and are an important for analyzing these changes. By using time-series of Landsat data of Bangalore, urban footprints have been studied. This helps in detecting temporal and spatial urban growth and urban sprawl. A multi-temporal analysis in radial fashion aims to identify Spatio-temporal urban Sprawl where the study area is divided into circles of 1KM radius and growth patterns are studied based on urban built up density. In addition, Directional analysis provides insight into location-based spatiotemporal patterns of urbanization as done in the form of circles divided into directions. Therefore, this paper analyses zones dividing the study area into zones of Circles and in particular directions. The results paint a characteristic picture of spatial pattern, and thus illustrate spatial growth and analyses urban sprawl in all the directions. Keywords: Urban sprawl, Urbanization, Bangalore.

Use of Zerovalent Iron (ZVI) for nitrate removal

Malini.R1, Sudhakar M. Rao2

Research Student, Centre for sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science, India malini@cst.iisc.ernet.in 2 Professor and Chairman, Centre for sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science, India
1

For the last sixty years, there has been an unabated use of nitrogenous fertilizers in agricultural practice to increase the crop yield. Additionally, improper sewage disposal is loading the surface and ground water bodies with excessive nitrate concentrations. As a consequence of nitrate contamination, algal blooms and eutrophication of lakes is a common phenomenon, endangering the ecosystem and life dependant on these water bodies. Demands have increased tenfold to get quality water. Although the NO3- itself is relatively non-toxic, NO2- , derived by reduction of NO3- can cause human health problems such as methemoglobinemia in infants, liver damage, and even cancers. The desirable limit for nitrate in drinking water as per the IS 10500-1991 is 45 mg/L. Existing technologies for the treatment of nitrates include distillation, ion exchange and reverse osmosis. But, these technologies are expensive, require huge initial investments and generate a lot of waste. There is a need for sustainable method for treating nitrates. Zerovalent iron offers the solution in the form of permeable reactive barriers. Iron corrodes and the electrons released from the anodic dissolution of iron can be utilized for the nitrate reduction to ammonium. The reduction of nitrate (Equation 1) by iron metal (Equation 2) is a thermodynamically facile reaction releasing -460 kJ/mol at pH 7 (Equation 3). NO3- + 10H+ + 8eFe Fe2+ + 2eNO3- + 10H+ + 4Fe NH4+ + 3H2O NH4+ + 3H2O + 4Fe2+ (1) (2) (3)

The objective of my work is to study the kinetics of this reaction and find the rate limiting factors of this reaction. Preliminary results of my studies will be presented.

Nutrient recovery from treated wastewater and biogas slurry by algal culture ponds
Priyanka Murthy, Chanakya H N
Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India priyanka@cst.iisc.ernet.in

Most treated wastewater in India (27%) does not recover nutrients as a result they flow into local water bodies causing eutrophication and loss of such water resources. India spends about Rs.1.2 Trillion annually to produce N fertilizer and therefore recovering N from various waste treatment systems is required to ensure sustainability. Currently we are trying to examine the nutrient recovery potential for several local algal species adapted to high nutrient status and possible harvesting mechanisms. Few algal species and communities growing on typical wastewater sources in Karnataka have been selected and being grown in shallow plastic tubs to determine their growth rates, nutrient removal potential and ease of harvest. Among several bacillariophycae, cyanophyceae and chlorophyceae species tried out two combinations functioned well on effluent from a biogas plant a typical anaerobic digester discharge. Nitschia and Anabena in combination grew well in this wastewater. A daily biomass production of 5.57g dry wt/m2/d could be harvested. This corresponds to 0.473-0.6g N recovery /m2/d. Among the several species tried, two combinations namely Chlorella + Hydordiction (by morning) and a combination of Nitschia and Anabena (after 4 days) were found to settle down rendering harvest easy. The possible harvesting mechanisms for such a system like trommel and a floculator will be discussed.

Conversion of Biomass to Liquid Fuel Fischer Tropsch Synthesis

Snehesh S

Abstract
Synthesis gas,(also known as Syngas), is a mixture of, predominantly CO and H2 . Syngas production methods include steam reforming of natural gas, coal gasication, and, as in our case, biomass gasication. In the Fischer Tropsch (FT ) process, this syngas is converted to a multi-component mixture of hydrocarbons, which is a promising topic in the energy industry. The products are environmentally clean fuels, specialty chemicals and waxes. FT process is a catalyzed reaction involving the polymerization of CO and H2 reactants. The FT reaction yeilds predominantly straight chain hydrocarbons (-olens and alkanes) and is generally viewed as a methylene (= CH2 ) polymerization reaction. The products are formed by hydrogenation of CO to generate methylene monomer. Polymerization occurs through initiation of chains, chain propagation, and chain termination steps.The primary FT reactions include: Parans : (2n + 1)H2 + nCO Cn H2n+2 + nH2 O Olens : 2nH2 + nCO Cn H2n + nH2O Water Gas Shift Reaction : CO + H2 O CO2 + H2 (1) (2) (3)

The most common FT catalysts are group VIII metals, viz., Co, Ru, and Fe. In our current research, Cobalt is used as a catalyst promoted by potassium on Alumina or Silica support.In obtaining highly eective catalysts for the synthesis of hydrocarbons from CO and H2 , an important factor is the selection of the support and the method of catalyst preparation. Impregnation of a support by cobalt nitrate oers a simple method for obtaining strong adhesion intensity of the catalyst on the surface of the support material. The product distributions of the FT process tends to obey the AndersonSchulz-Flory (ASF) chain length statistics. This product distribution is aected by the occurrence of secondary reactions - hydrogenation, isomerization, reinsertion and hydrogenolysis. At high CO and H2 O pressures the most important secondary reaction is readsorption of olens resulting in initiation of chain growth process. Secondary hydrogenation of olens may occur at high hydrogen pressures and on certain catalytic systems, such as Co and Ru based catalysts. This work involves the development of catalyst for conversion of biomass to liquid fuels and to develop an appropriate kinetic model to represent the product distribution as a function of reaction conditions. Process development and reactor design should be based on reliable kinetic expressions and detailed selectivity models. 1