In a significant move to produce bio-compressed natural gas (bio-CNG) from degradable waste, the City Corporation has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Central Leather Research Institute (CSIR-CLRI) for preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) to set up a biogas bottling plant so as to sell it to consumers for operating cars and buses.
The MoU was signed on Monday by B. Chandrasekaran, Director, CSIR- CLRI and N. Ravichandran, Commissioner, Tiruchi City Corporation, in Chennai in the presence of B.N. Das, Deputy Director, P. Shanmugam, Project Leader, P. Kanthasamy, Principal Technical Officer of CLRI and S. Kannan, Executive Engineer, In-Charge of Tiruchi Corporation. The CLRI will submit the DPR within three months. Besides the basic design of biogas bottling plant, it will also provide technical guidance on producing biogas from wet waste. The Tiruchi Corporation will pay ₹5 lakh to CLRI for the service.
Speaking to The Hindu over phone, Mr. Shanmugam said that the project has been christened ‘Waste into wheels.’ The Tiruchi Corporation generates 450 tonnes of mixed municipal solid waste every day. Of this, nearly 225 tonnes was organic degradable waste, which was the main raw material for producing compressed natural gas. About 100 tonnes of degradable was sufficient for building a 100 tpd biogas bottling plant. Hundred tonnes of green waste could produce 7,500 to 10,000 cubic meter of biogas, which was equivalent to 15,000 to 20,000 units of electricity.
However, Mr. Shanmugan said that the project was aimed at producing Compressed Natural Biogas (CNG) instead of producing electricity. In other words, the plant could produce 4,800 kg of CNG per day. It would be filled into 14 kg capacity cylinders and could be used for operating cars and buses.
Mr. Ravichandran said that once the DPR was ready, the Corporation would go for floating tender to set up the plant. It would be established under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. It has been planned to set up the plant within 12 to 15 months.
