Wealth from Waste : Trends and Technologies
Contents: Preface. 1. Biomass gasifier-based power plants: potential, problems and research needs for decentralized rural electrification/Sanjay Mande. 2. Biofuels/Avinash K. Agarwal. 3. Bio-hydrogen: technology status and future prospects/Jae-Ho Bae, Nirmala Bardiya and M.R.V. Prasada Reddy. 4. Technological options for municipal solid waste management/R. Johri and K.V. Rajeshwari. 5. Industrial solid waste/Suneel Pandey. 6. Technological trends and opportunities in cogeneration/Pradeep K. Dadhich. 7. Bioethanol: a status review on metabolic pathway modification of certain ethanologenic bacteria through genetic engineering/M.R.V. Prasada Reddy, B. Lal and H. Sonali. 8. Methanogenesis from agro-industrial residues: potential and prospects/Deepak Somayaji. 9. Utilization of agricultural wastes / by-products in treatment of water and waste water/M.C. Somasekhara Reddy. 10. Industrial effluents: bioreactors for treatment of wastes/K. Ramasamy and P. Doraisamy. 11. Bioethanol production technologies: economics, environmental impact, and policy issues/K.L. Kadam. 12. Environmental regulations in India for waste management/Sandeep Shrivastava. Index.
"Rapid urbanization and industrialization in India visibly spell the need to put in place effective and efficient systems for disposal of the waste generated--municipal solid waste, agro-industrial waste, plastic, waste water, and so on. As in other Asian countries, in India too, landfills, groundwater pollution, residues produced by agro-industrial processes, and other similar problems pose a threat. It is estimated that methanogenic anaerobic digestion releases over 250 million tonnes of methane gas annually all over the world--methane is a substantial contributor to global warming.
These facts compel us to take a closer look at the need to recycle waste rather than simply find ways to dispose of it. At a time when the world is confronted with the twin challenges of fossil-fuel depletion and environmental degradation, the book emphasizes how addressing the latter could contribute to mitigating the former by addressing the issues of generating energy from waste, describing scientific methods to minimize its hazardous impacts, providing an assessment of the existing technologies, and highlighting various aspects of biofuel production and cogeneration."
