Location: Mumbai (Maharashtra)
Pilot Leaders: CENTA/NITIE

Water challenge in this location: The principal water challenges are related with: (i) scarcity of water as the water resources are far away from the city and demand-supply gap is increasing, (ii) space constraint for STP installation; need for compact plant design, (iii) Efficient sewage treatment is essential for promoting safe water reuse (iv) use of fresh water (surface and groundwater) for irrigation purposes (v) potential reuse of treated wastewater in the irrigation of current and new plots of land, thus, improving the living conditions of the population (access to safe food).

Benefits of the technology: The combination of robust and compact technologies for wastewater treatment (RBC and Sand filtration) and for water reclamation (Electrochemical disinfection) guarantees the safe reuse of the treated wastewater for irrigation purposes. Besides, the use of Electromagnetic treatment improves the physicochemical quality of the water that leads to an enhanced crops’ production. Further, as the RBC is closed tank aeration, it will be odourless. It will be able to handle shock load due to better aeration. It is cost effective. It will require minimal civil work and will be an automated process.

Potential for India: RBC is a technology that is compact and scalable and can be installed at land-constrained locations to recycle water at small scale. As outlined earlier there is in general a high demand in India for reliable and robust decentralized wastewater treatment plants.

Scope of replication and upscaling: The plant will be locally constructed with the involvement of BMC. Hence, excellent stakeholder visibility will greatly enhance the scope of replication within India.

Disinfection by means of sand pressure filter plus UV and ultrasound

Location: Burhanpur (Madhya Pradesh)
Pilot Leaders: CENTA/CEMDS/NITIE

Water challenge in this location: An existing WWTP will be upgraded with a tertiary treatment.

Benefits of the technology: The aim is to provide a sustainable and robust tertiary treatment train which can be easily employed in the upgrading of obsolete existing STP or new ones. The combination of UV-LED lamps (lower energy costs) and chlorination guarantees the safe reuse of the reclaimed water (maintenance chlorination avoids the reactivation of pathogens after the UV- disinfection).

Potential for India: Decentralized wastewater treatment plants that do not provide sufficient treatment to provide safe reuse are very common across India. Therefore, there is a high potential for low cost post treatment systems to enhance effluents of existing treatment plants to be safe for reuse. In particular there is a high demand for agriculture to use safe treated wastewater as more than 60 percent of India’s irrigated agriculture is dependent on groundwater which is depleting fast in many areas. The implementation of low- cost and low O&M treatments for the reuse of treated wastewater in agriculture, such as those included in this pilot action, will significantly contribute to reducing the negative effects derived from overexploitation of conventional resources and the drought on the agricultural sector of India.

Scope of replication/upscaling across India: As the technology will be locally constructed and implemented at an existing wastewater treatment plant there is a large demand for post treatment of existing treatment plants, there is a great potential for replication and up-scaling of this technology.

Location: Jaipur (Rajasthan)/ Kishangarh (Rajasthan)
Pilot Leaders: BioK/MNIT; BioK/CURAJ
Pilot Status: Both the units are installed and working well.

Water challenge in this location: The location in Jaipur has medical wastewater which can be contaminated with a variety of pathogens. The location at CURAJ is typical for cities across India that have no wastewater treatment plants for smaller residential areas.

Benefits of the Technology: Mars plants are ready to install packaged wastewater treatment plant (and hence can be quickly and easily installed) that can be operated in a fully automatic and energy efficient way. Apart for the removal of phosphorous no consumables (chemicals) are required for operation. The filter media is of high quality and can be easily lifted for cleaning purpose. It further features a self-cleaning system using air lift pumps for the post settling. The system is well designed with no moving parts, which translates into very low operational expenditures. It has a guaranteed 25 year lifetime.

Potential for India: As outlined in previously, India is lacking reliable decentralized (smaller-scale) wastewater treatment plants that can meet stricter effluent standards. Hence there is a large demand for such reliable package plants. In particular in situations with clinical wastewaters reliable treatment plants are required.

Scope of replication/upscaling across India: Biokube is already cooperating with Waterneer in India which are selling the plants in India. Hence, upon successful piloting the technologies can be quickly replicated an upscaled across India.

Main outcomes: Monitoring and evaluation is in progress.

Location: Haridwar (Uttarakhand)
Pilot Leader: IITR
Pilot Status: Under operation phase.

Water challenge in this location: The water quality of the River Ganga at u/s of Haridwar is very good. However, it deteriorates downstream due to the abstraction of water for agriculture and other public purpose and discharge of untreated wastewater from villages and habitations at the bank of river. Several villages and hamlets are located in this stretch which requires immediate attention. It is important to note that unabated discharge of treated sewage cannot bring the river water to bathing quality level in lean season river flow. Hence, to achieve bathing water quality at downstream of Haridwar to Garhmukteshwar, advanced small size STPs are required.

Benefits of the technology: The system offer following distinct advantages over conventional SBR system

• Co-current nitrification and denitrification allows operating without mixing equipment. Proper oxygen demand/supply operation control by OUR (Oxygen Uptake Rate) in combination with the SELECTOR allows controlling this process.
• The OUR reduces the aeration time during night time automatically due to less influent and less load at night time. This increases the lifetime of blowers and diffusers and reduces the energy demand.
• Conventional SBR systems do not have an anaerobic selector. Hence, filamentous sludge bulking in conventional SBR systems is a problem, which can only be avoided with additional equipment like equalization tanks and pumps.
• For C-TECH good references of existing large-scale plants are at hand.

Potential for India: The features of the technology greatly reduce the O&M requirement and operator’s attention and thus have a very high potential in India. Also in hilly areas, the centralized sewer collection is very difficult and also space for the construction of sewage treatment plants is limited. The modular construction of the C-TECH plant enables small wastewater treatment, can be quickly installed within these areas and offers a considerable potential to solve pollution related problems of the Ganga and other rivers. Additionally, the effluent from the plant offers a potential for non-potable applications. Since it is energy efficient and requires smaller land footprint, the plants already a great success in urban India.

Scope of replication/upscaling across India: The proposed small-scale C-TECH SBR plant will be designed by IITR in consultation with SFC Environmental Technologies, an Indian based company which markets middle and large sized C-TECH plants in India. Hence, upon successful piloting of a small-scale C-TECH plant in India, demonstrating all benefits highlighted above, there is a huge scope of replication and upscaling in India as manufacturing can be easily set up in India.

Main outcomes: The pilot plant completed its commissioning phase in the July first week, 2022. Regular monitoring and assessment are in process. The significant outcomes are the following:
(a) During the start-up phase, at the cycle time of two hours, the COD, BOD, and TSS Removal are around >80%, >85%, and >88%, respectively.
(b) The nutrient (N and P) removal is >50% in the plant and is in the optimizing process.
(c) The SVI of the plant’s sludge is <55 mL/g on average, and Sludge MLSS is around ~2769 mg/L.

Location: IIT Bhubaneswar Campus, Argul, Jatni, Bhubaneswar (Orissa)
Pilot Leaders: UT / IITBBS
Pilot Status: Pilot plant construction is going on.

Water challenge in this location: The water demand in the area comprises of the residential, academic and recreational area’s water requirements. In addition, the campus is in a budding stage of the construction of academic and residential buildings, developing plantations and green belts, which add to the water demand. The water demand in the campus is presently met from the groundwater source. The water extraction from the area is depleting the groundwater level. Therefore, the proposed study will emphasize on the reuse of wastewater for flushing, gardening and aesthetic enhancement. The process will be conducted with an eco-friendly biological treatment system.

Benefits of the technology: Novel biological treatment methods are much more economical treatment paths due to no requirement of organic carbon and less aeration energy needed for the treatment. Additionally, owing to the autotrophic nature, generation of sludge is considerably lower than the conventional treatment processes. Emerging autotrophic nitrogen removal technologies already used in Europe and USA could be benefitted in India for wastewater treatment.

Potential for India: The energy-efficient technologies for integrated COD and nutrient removal are in focus for India. Application of autarchic treatment technologies has a huge potential as an energy efficient nitrogen removal process and hence also suitable for rural areas with unstable energy supply.

Scope of replication/upscaling across India: Approaching to zero- waste generation and energy production from waste concepts would enhance India’s economic, environmental and political status. Biological nutrients removal is of utmost important for India due to large population and lack of advanced but affordable biological wastewater treatment technologies. Achievement of proper deammonification process involved microorganisms cultivation technologies from scratch and spreading to various wastewater treatment plants may be a viable solution to the issue of environmental pollution by the large population at warm climate conditions. With warm climate presence, several anaerobic biological treatment technologies depending on temperature would be suitable for nutrients removal. Anaerobic ammonium oxidizers have optimum growth temperature of about 30°C making it suitable for treatment of nutrients coming from mainstream wastewater.

Public deliverables: UASB- ANAMMOX demonstration plant, treating 0.1 MLD sewage. Resource recovery facilities. Technical know how of the piloted technology.