Environmental quality monitoring and impact assessment of solid waste dumpsites in high altitude sub-tropical regions.

Solid Waste Management (SWM) in high altitude regions is critically phased because of the non-availability of suitable facilities for the treatment and handling of large quantities of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). Open burning practices at hill slopes were noticed which affect the surrounding environment. Hence, it became essential to measure the environmental components around the dumpsites to examine the impacts and suggest new technological solutions.

Anaerobic digestion of biowastes in India: Opportunities, challenges and research needs.

The quest for improved living conditions in rapidly growing Indian communities puts pressure on natural resources and produces emissions which harm the environment, society and the economy. Current municipal solid waste (MSW) practices are an important example, as most waste remains untreated and is often deposited on unsafe dumpsites or burned on open fires. Anaerobic digestion (AD) is an option to treat the large biodegradable fraction ('biowaste').

Methane potential from municipal biowaste: Insights from six communities in Maharashtra, India.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) of biowaste can generate biogas with methane (CH) as energy source and contribute to sustainable municipal solid waste management in India. Characteristic municipal biowastes sampled seasonally from household, fruit and vegetable market and agricultural waste collection points in villages, towns and cities in Maharashtra were analysed to assess the potential as substrate for AD. The mean biochemical methane potential (BMP, at 37 °C) across seasons and community sizes was between 200-260, 175-240 and 101-286 NL kg for household, market and agricultural biowaste, respectively.

Biomethanation potential for co-digestion of municipal solid waste and rice straw: A batch study.

Rice straw (RS) contains a high amount of lignocellulosic materials which are difficult to degrade without thermal pretreatment. In the present study, co-digestion of municipal solid waste (MSW) and RS was carried out in three different ratios i.e.

Improving methane yield and quality via co-digestion of cow dung mixed with food waste.

Methane (CH) production and quality were enhanced by the co-digestion of cow dung and food waste (FW) mixed with organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) under optimized conditions in bench and semi continuous-scale mode for a period of 30 days. A bacterium capable of high yield of CH was enriched and isolated by employing activated sewage sludge as the inoculums. The thirteen bacterial isolates were identified through morphological and biochemical tests.

A review on organic waste to energy systems in India.

Waste generation is increasing day-by-day with the growth of population which directly affects the environment and economy. Organic municipal solid waste (MSW) and agriculture sectors contribute towards maximum waste generation in India. Thus, management of organic waste is very much essential with the increasing demand for energy.

Artificial neural network based modeling to evaluate methane yield from biogas in a laboratory-scale anaerobic bioreactor.

The performance of a laboratory-scale anaerobic bioreactor was investigated in the present study to determine methane (CH4) content in biogas yield from digestion of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). OFMSW consists of food waste, vegetable waste and yard trimming. An organic loading between 40 and 120kgVS/m(3) was applied in different runs of the bioreactor.

Characterization of municipal solid waste in high-altitude sub-tropical regions.

Solid waste management (SWM) is one of the most challenging issues owing to lack of authentic data on different elements of SWM, namely, storage, collection, transportation, separation, processing and disposal. This study presents an assessment of existing status of SWM in conjunction with municipal solid waste (MSW) generation rates, physical and chemical characterization of MSW in high-altitude sub-tropical regions. Weighing of empty and fully loaded trucks per trip revealed total quantity of MSW collected.

Effect of organic loading rate during anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste.

The effect of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and volatile solids (VS) on subsequent methane (CH4) production during anaerobic digestion (AD) of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) was studied in a laboratory-scale digester. The experiment was performed in 2L anaerobic digester under different experimental conditions using different input mass co-digested with inoculum and organic loading rate (OLR) for 27days at 38±2°C. Three digesters (digesters 1, 2 and 3) were operated at initial loading of 5.

Effect of calcium chloride on abating inhibition due to volatile fatty acids during the start-up period in anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste.

Biomethanation of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a slow process and the yield of biogas is usually low. The present study was carried out to examine the effect of calcium chloride (CaCl2) on anaerobic digestion of MSW. Three anaerobic digesters with different concentrations of CaCl2, namely sample without additives (Control), sample with 2.