Energy-efficient, community-based water- and wastewater-treatment systems for deployment in India

Final Report Summary - ECO-INDIA (Energy-efficient, community-based water- and wastewater-treatment systems for deployment in India)

Executive Summary:
In India, 30% of urban and 90% of rural households are entirely dependent on untreated surface or groundwater. In addition, the vast majority of the country's population is affected by severe water scarcity, waterborne diseases and excessive levels of fluoride, nitrates, iron and arsenic in water, which cause severe health disorders.
With €1.7 million in funding from the European Commission’s FP7 Programme and €500,000 from the Indian Department of Science and Technology (DST), ECO-India aimed at developing innovative and sustainable approaches for producing potable water for a rural community in Jyot Sujan in the Murshidabad region in West Bengal.
Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork in Ireland (Tyndall-UCC) co-ordinated the European (FP7) consortium, an interdisciplinary team from three research institutes - Tyndall-UCC, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU), Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH (UFZ) - and four SMEs (Trustwater, adelphi, Dryden Aqua, AGM). Trustwater’s technical participation ended in March 2015.
The School of Water Resources & Engineering at Jadavpur University (JU) in Kolkata co-ordinated the Indian (DST) consortium, comprising researchers from Jadavpur University, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, as well as an SME, Super Technicians.
The key project objectives were:
(1) Develop a reliable cost-effective system for production of clean and safe drinking water for a community (village) environment capable of treating >90 m3 (90,000 litres) of water per day.
(2): Complement (and ultimately substitute) sand in sand filters with Dryden Aqua’s AFM (Active Filter Media), a water filtration media manufactured from recycled glass, to improve the quality of drinking water by removing 30% more waste from the water.
(3): Develop a cost-effective, telemetry system for remote system monitoring via mobile phone networks (in India).
(4): Undertake a feasibility study (at DTU) of an anaerobic digestion system for biogas production (2 kW per hour).
(5): Develop a lab-scale prototypes for a capacitive deionisation module targeting deionisation of ground /surface water and removal of heavy metal contaminants such as arsenic.
(6): Support the DST consortium for establishment of a sustainable integrated water resource management system.
Project achievements:
Overall, the project has been a great success. Both surface water and groundwater treatment systems are operational and potable water is being supplied to the local community via standposts.
Project achievements during Period 1 (Months 1-18) included:
Selection of two locations in Jyot Sujan for surface- and ground-water treatment, respectively
Engagement of local community and completion of Needs Assessment
Commencement of construction activities at pilot site
Development of Process & Integration Diagrams for piping and instrumentation
Development and installation of water treatment and monitoring systems in containers (in Europe)
Initiation of Biogas Feasibility Assessment Programme
Initiation of Arsenic Testing Programme
Development of nanoelectrodes for capacitive deionisation.
Project achievements during Period 2 (M19 to M42) included:
Delivery of containers with European Technologies to pilot site in Jyot Sujan in Month 19 (March 2014)
Major progress in completion of construction activities at both Surface Water Site and Ground Water Site
Commissioning of European Technologies at site in Month 31 (March 2015)
o Online monitoring system at surface water site
o Activated filter media systems at both surface water site and groundwater site
o Electrochemical disinfection system at surface water site
Implementation of performance monitoring and water testing programmes
Assessment and Optimisation of disinfection systems
Assessment of activated filter media system performance
Sustainability Assessment
Development of lab-scale capacitive deionisation cells based on reduced graphene oxide electrodes and performance assessment vs activated carbon electrodes

Project Context and Objectives:
In India, 30% of urban and 90% of rural households are entirely dependent on untreated surface or groundwater. In addition, the vast majority of the country's population is affected by severe water scarcity, waterborne diseases and excessive levels of fluoride, nitrates, iron and arsenic in available water, which cause severe health disorders. There is thus an urgent need for effective and safe water supply systems.
With €1.7 million in funding from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and some €500,000 from the Indian Department of Science and Technology (DST), the three year ECO-India project, which began in September 2012 aims at developing innovative, cost-effective, energy-efficient and sustainable approaches for producing potable water and treating wastewater for a rural community in Jyot Sujan in the Murshidabad region in West Bengal. ECO-India brings together leading Indian and European groups from universities, research institutes and industry.
Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork in Ireland (Tyndall-UCC) co-ordinates the European (FP7) consortium, a world-class interdisciplinary research team from three research institutes - Tyndall-UCC, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU), Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH (UFZ) - and four SMEs (Trustwater, adelphi, Dryden Aqua, AGM). Trustwater’s technical participation in the project ended in March 2015 (Month 31).
The School of Water Resources & Engineering at Jadavpur University (JU) in Kolkata co-ordinates the Indian (DST) consortium, brings together leading researchers from Jadavpur University, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, as well as an SME, Super Technicians.
The project partners have targeted eight key & quantifiable objectives:
(1) Develop a reliable cost-effective system for production of clean and safe drinking water for a community (village) environment in a developing country using Trustwater’s mixed-oxidant generation technology capable of producing sufficient Ecasol mixed oxidant disinfectant over a 14 hour period with continuous electrical supply (normal daily operation) to treat >90 m3 (90,000 litres) of water at 2 ppm Ecasol concentration.
(i) E. coli pathogen concentrations below 1 colony-forming unit per 100 mL and Cryptosporidium concentrations below 1 oocyst per 10 L. (Entire system will be 100 times more efficient than chlorine bleach).
(ii) Cost approx. 25 Euros per year per Indian family. To meet objectives set out by the India Government 15000 RPS per annum per family (Supreme Court of India Order on writ Petition (c) No. 230 Date 28th April 2009).
(2): Complement (and ultimately substitute) sand in sand filters with Dryden Aqua’s AFM (Active Filter Media), a water filtration media manufactured from recycled glass, to improve the quality of drinking water by removing 30% more waste from the water.
(3): Develop a cost-effective, telemetry system for remote system monitoring via mobile phone networks (in India).
(4): Undertake a feasibility study (at DTU) of an anaerobic digestion system for biogas production capable of meeting the systems energy requirements, estimated energy production 2 kW per hour.
(5): Provide support to the DST consortium for a feasibility assessment for a built-in emergency response system to cater for monsoon flash floods and water shortages..
(6): Develop a lab-scale prototype of a graphene-based capacitive deionisation module (at Tyndall-UCC and Trustwater) targeting deionisation of ground /surface water and removal of heavy metal contaminants such as arsenic to desirable limits.
(7): Develop low-cost, microelectrode-based electrochemical sensors for rapid monitoring of dissolved oxygen levels at temperatures from 20-55 C. This development targets early warning detection of threats to water quality, e.g. due to contamination and/or increases in pathogen concentration.
(8): Provide support to the DST consortium for establishment of a sustainable integrated water resource management system for a surface water based supply scheme with locally maintainable treatment steps which can be modularly upgraded.

Project Results:
Overall, the project has been a great success. Both surface water and groundwater treatment systems are operational and potable water is being supplied to the local community via standposts.
Project achievements during Period 1 (Months 1-18) included:
Selection of two locations in Jyot Sujan for surface- and ground-water treatment, respectively
Engagement of local community and completion of Needs Assessment
Commencement of construction activities at pilot site
Development of Process & Integration Diagrams for piping and instrumentation
Development and installation of water treatment and monitoring systems in containers (in Europe)
Initiation of Biogas Feasibility Assessment Programme
Initiation of Arsenic Testing Programme
Development of nanoelectrodes for capacitive deionisation.
Project achievements during Period 2 (M19 to M42) included:
Delivery of containers with European Technologies to pilot site in Jyot Sujan in Month 19 (March 2014)
Major progress in completion of construction activities at both Surface Water Site and Ground Water Site
Commissioning of European Technologies at site in Month 31 (March 2015)
o Online monitoring system at surface water site
o Activated filter media systems at both surface water site and groundwater site
o Electrochemical disinfection system at surface water site
Implementation of performance monitoring and water testing programmes
Assessment and Optimisation of disinfection systems
Assessment of activated filter media system performance
Sustainability Assessment
Development of lab-scale capacitive deionisation cells based on reduced graphene oxide electrodes and performance assessment vs activated carbon electrodes.

Offline and Online Monitoring programmes have been set up, tested and initiated. Four treatment systems have been monitored:
• Surface water site: Horizontal Roughing Filter and Slow Sand Filter (SSF) based alternative setup
• Surface water site: Activated Filter Media (AFM) based advanced setup for filtration.
• Groundwater site: Arsenic Removal Unit (ARU) system
• Groundwater site: AFM system for filtration and arsenic removal.

For the surface water supply catchment area management had started in June 2013 with the aim to protect the water source as described in D 2.1. The protection of the water source continued throughout the project period with several succeeding workshops and repairs of the catchment area bunds and channels. Offline monitoring was conducted with simple field test kits from adelphi and water quality probes from Jadavpur University (JU). This was done on a monthly basis, monitoring the raw water quality.
The ECO-India water supply sites have provided treated water since March 2015. Online monitoring was setup by AGM, Tyndall, JU and adelphi and started on 23rd March 2015. After initial optimization efforts reliable data were produced from June 2015 onwards.
For offline monitoring the test run for all the biological and chemical parameters was conducted from 25th May to 10th of June by JU and adelphi after all the field test kits were finally delivered by the suppliers. Training was provided to the water committee members from Jyot Sujan for conducting all water quality tests. First phase of regular monitoring started on June 19th and continued till July 17th with daily tests. Second phase with weekly monitoring continued for another 5 months which was followed by monthly monitoring.

Full details of project achievements (including photographs) have been summarised in the Period 2 report and associated deliverables which are also available via the project web-page.

Potential Impact:
ECO-India will have multiple, broad impacts. At community level, improvements in wellbeing due to availability of potable water will be significant. Quality of life for the villagers will also improve, especially for women and girls who typically have to carry water. At regional level, this pilot site could serve as a flagship for sustainable, community-level water and wastewater treatment systems. At national and international level, the project will raise the visibility of all partners and offer significant opportunities for further business development for the industry partners.
Participation of local community, outreach and knowledge transfer from the ECO-India project to the user has shown positive outcome. Agreements and commitments from the water committee and the cooperation between the village and the ECO-India project partners are available and have been maintained. Planning and Implementation workshops and participatory construction activities in the village have taken place. Trainings on operation and maintenance of the setup technologies were given and the water committee is now successfully operating the treatment plants.
Performance monitoring has been taken up by the water committee and showed that the systems can be run by the local operators.
It is expected that in the near future the community together with the water committee will be able to run the water and sanitation infrastructure themselves, by collecting nominal maintenance fees from the community and organising schedule check-up and maintenance activities.

Additional examples of ECO-India impacts include:
• Dryden Aqua have formed a partnership with an Indian SME (SVS Technologies) to provide activated filter media (AFM) filtration solutions for drinking water, tertiary treatment of municipal waste water and industrial process water in India. Dryden Aqua and industry partners (including SVS and Tata Projects) have won tenders to supply 5,000 AFM-based water filtration systems in India.
• Based on experience gained during the ECO-India project, Dryden Aqua have also developed a simple, rapid gravity filter system using activated filter media which doesn’t require any valves or control systems, thus enabling simple operation with automatic backwashing. Manufacturing of these systems has recently started in Pune, India.
• In the North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal, where Chatra is located, around 52 percent of the 7.3 million inhabitants consume arsenic contaminated water on a daily basis. To help solve this problem, adelphi and the charitable organisation Indienhilfe e.V. have set up the project “Safe Water Chatra” (SaWaCha), set to run through 2020. Its goal is the construction of a community-based, sustainable water supply for the portion of the population of Chatra most seriously affected by arsenic contamination. adelphi is especially emphasising participatory project implementation in order to enable the affected municipality to independently run the drinking water treatment plant in the long-term, thus ensuring its lasting functionality.

List of Websites:
www.eco-india.eu

Final Report Summary - ECO-INDIA (Energy-efficient, community-based water- and wastewater-treatment systems for deployment in India)

Diese Seite teilen

Herunterladen