Plastic bottles could clean arsenic-contaminated water

Syful Islam

www.scidev.net

7 September 2011

[DHAKA] Chopped up plastic bottles covered in a common chemical may be a simple and inexpensive method for removing arsenic from drinking water.

A team of chemists at Monmouth University, United States, found that bits of plastic coated with cysteine, a common molecule found in foods, bind to arsenic.

"Laboratory experiments have shown that the method has the potential to be very efficient and very cost effective," Tsanangurayi Tongesayi, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the university told SciDev.Net.

"The method uses plastics which are cheap and locally available," he added. "[It] is eco-friendly because it involves recycling of plastic bottles [and] is also safe because the chemical ingredients used are not toxic."

In Bangladesh alone some 35 million people are exposed to arsenic contamination from drinking water, according to the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), and estimates say around 100 million in the developing world are affected.

Arsenic has been linked to a variety of health problems from stomach pains and blindness to various cancers — one in five deaths in Bangladesh has been linked to arsenic exposure.

Tongesayi presented his team's findings last week (31 August) at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. The researchers showed that the method can reduce the arsenic content from 20 parts per billion (ppb) — two times higher than the safe standard set by the US Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water — to 0.2 ppb.

Tongesayi said they were now looking for a commercial partner to scale up the process.

But Guy Howard, the UK Department for International Development's Research and Evidence Representative in South Asia, said: "Simply looking for a commercial partner is not the key to scaling up". The technology first has to be shown to work in field conditions, which may vary a lot and where other chemical species compete with arsenic for adsorption sites, he said.

He added that the technology also needs to be shown to be acceptable to potential users, who must understand how to use it and when to replace filters, for example. Some previous technologies that worked in the lab, have failed at these two steps, Howard said.

"Finally such a technology has to pass regulatory requirements — some scientists appear to believe these do not exist in countries like Bangladesh. The reality is quite the reverse — Bangladesh has a very stringent technology verification process and technologies are only accepted for wide deployment once this is passed," he said.

Shudhir Kumar Ghosh an engineer at the DPHE said the new method has good prospect in Bangladesh since it will use low cost plastic bottle and the easily available chemical.

He added that there are already various methods in use to remove arsenic from drinking water in Bangladesh, including six chemical-based technologies — half of those invented locally.

Such methods can be useful at a household level but need constant monitoring of the presence of the chemical and arsenic in water, Kumar Ghosh said.

http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/land-water-pollution/news/plastic-bottles-could-clean-arsenic-contaminated-water.html

Bangladesh and the Netherlands to share flood research

Syful Islam

28 July 2011, DHAKA

Flood-prone Bangladesh and the Netherlands are planning to exchange research findings and share experience on managing floods, which are projected to worsen because of climate change.

Floods wreak havoc in Bangladesh every year. Last week's floods killed at least four people and stranded an estimated 20,000, according to the Associated Press.

A five-year research programme worth €700,000 (US$1 million) will aim to strengthen the capacity of institutions and communities to deal with moderate and extreme floods. The programme was announced last month (27 June) and will be hosted by the Wageningen University and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

It will allow the scientists to share experiences and come up with a framework that will link disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and flood management. Funds will go towards four PhD research projects that will analyse flood policies and strategies in the two countries, and one project aimed at putting research findings into practice though local workshops.

So far, both countries have had mixed experiences with building embankments on coastal deltas to reclaim low-lying land.

Bangladesh's coast is a flat plain into which sediment-laden rivers drain. Engineers built embankments to keep seawater out of the deltas and to protect against storm surges, Shah Alam Khan, professor at the Institute of Water and Flood Management and a co-leader of the new programme, told SciDev.Net.

But the embankments stopped rain water draining out, causing heavy waterlogging. Local communities eventually started breaking open the embankments to let the accumulated water out. This community-driven process was later adopted as government policy.

"The consequences of the polder [land protected by an embankment] system were not considered when the technology was adopted," Khan said. "Tidal flooding is a natural process in Bangladesh which was barred through [setting up] polders, leaving the overall ecosystem of the area in a dire state."

Large parts of the Netherlands are below the sea level and are also protected by embankments. But there, too, the embankments caused drainage problems as the land got silted up.

To solve the problem, the Netherlands adopted policies on river management by cutting embankments to allow tidal flooding for up to five years. This helped drain out excess water.

Khan said that engineers' efforts on tidal management have not yielded uniform results in all areas, and exchanging knowledge with the Netherlands could help them improve river management.

The research project dubbed 'Communities and institutions for flood resilience: enhancing knowledge and capacity to manage flood risk in the Bangladeshi and Dutch Deltas'', is funded by WOTRO, a Dutch funding organisation for research on global issues.

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/bangladesh-and-the-netherlands-to-share-flood-research-1.html

Climate-friendly kilns could reduce Bangladesh's emissions

Syful Islam

8 July 2011, DHAKA

Bangladesh, which emits relatively fewer polluting gases but is projected to be highly vulnerable to global warming, has embarked on a drive to introduce environment-friendly brick-making technology to curb gaseous emissions.

The UN Development Fund (UNDP) last month (22 June) announced financial and technical support for large-scale adoption of its improved brick-making technology to help the country cut emissions and improve efficiency. The UNDP will invest in 16 demonstration kilns by the end of 2014.

Bangladesh has some 8,000 traditional kilns making 8.66 billion bricks worth US$ 450 million annually. The sector grew by over eight per cent during the last decade, but also contributed three million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually due to "outmoded, inefficient and poorly constructed kilns and the use of substandard fuels such as high sulphur coal, tyres and wood energy in the kilns to fire clay into bricks," a UNDP release said.

It is projected to grow by five per cent each year, burning more than a million tonnes of coal annually and emitting 8.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2014.

The new technology is based on the German ‘Hoffman kiln’ developed in the mid-19th century to bake clay. In 1999, China improvised the German technology into the more environment-friendly 'hybrid Hoffman kiln' (HHK), in which coal and clay are injected into a chamber and mixed to form raw, wet bricks, which are later dried.

The hybrid approach burns 95 per cent of the fuel, is more efficient and emits fewer polluting gases to produce high quality, lower cost bricks.

The UNDP improvised the HHK further by enlarging the drying chamber to suit Bangladesh's coal quality and clay moisture.

UNDP project manager Khondker Neaz Rahman told SciDev.Net that pilot tests initiated in January 2010, in Dhamrai town near Dhaka, showed the new approach producing 40,000 bricks daily, compared to 25,000-30,000 bricks using Chinese technology.

Private brick makers and development experts have welcomed the new technology. Pallab Kumar Moholnobish, project manager of ECO Brick Ltd., Dhamrai, said he can now produce bricks round the year, using less coal — 14 tonnes to make 100,000 bricks, compared to 24 tonnes in the older kilns.

Kiln operators can also earn carbon credits — a provision under the United Nations Framework on Convention for Climate Change that allows countries or groups that reduce their emissions to earn ‘credits’ for carbon dioxide reduced, and trade them in for cash.

Atiq Rahman, chairman of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, Dhaka, observed that the HHK would help reduce emissions as much of the dust, heat and gases remain within the chambers and are not released into the air.

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/climate-friendly-kilns-could-reduce-bangladesh-s-emissions.html

Bangladesh aims for big growth in solar energy by 2015

31 Aug 2011

By Syful Islam

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AlertNet) - Rural areas of Bangladesh are to see an increase in solar electricity generation as part of an ambitious plan to boost the provision of power from renewable sources.

The government has set a target of generating 500 megawatts (MW) of green energy – almost ten times the current amount – by 2015, in an attempt to narrow the gap between current supplies of grid electricity and the needs of the country’s 160 million people.

Only 49 percent of Bangladesh’s population has access to electricity from the national grid. Fossil fuels account for almost all the current capacity of 5,500 MW, with renewable sources – mostly solar power – contributing just 55 MW.

The government says there are environmental and developmental imperatives behind its search for alternative energy sources.

“Burning fossil fuel emits greenhouse gases into the air, contributing to the warming of the globe. (And) fossil fuels are depleting very quickly which is a threat to future power generation,” said Tapos Kumar Roy, additional secretary of the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources.

SOLAR HOME SYSTEMS

Solar home systems (SHS) are the main weapon in the government’s renewable energy armoury, because they can operate independently of the national grid. More than one million such solar systems have already been installed in rural areas where there is no other source of electricity.

Mosharraf Hosein Khokon, a resident of Brammonchak village in Bangladesh’s southeastern Chandpur district, spent 20,000 taka (about $270) to buy a solar home system. He sees little prospect of his village being connected to the national grid in the near future, so solar energy is a great help.

“The SHS system is helping us to light our four rooms. Now young members of our family can study with light from SHS, and we can watch television too,” said Khokon.

Roy said the government has identified about 30 remote sub-districts where grid expansion is not possible in the next 10 to 15 years.

“So we have no alternative to renewable energy to meet the government’s social commitment of electricity for all by 2020,” he said.

Since November 2010, the government has mandated the installation of roof-top solar panels on all new high-rise buildings, and it currently has other solar power projects under development with a total capacity of 35 MW.

Under the plan, 340 MW of new capacity will be generated from systems installed on residential, commercial and industrial buildings, as well irrigation pumps, mini-grid systems and solar parks.

Solar power systems installed on the rooftops of local government buildings, railway stations, and rural health and educational institutions will provide the balance.

WILLPOWER AND SUBSIDIES

Experts predict that the Bangladeshi government will need considerable political willpower and financial subsidies to increase its stake in green energy.

Rezwan Khan, chairman of the technical standards committee of the Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL), a state-run organization promoting renewable energy, noted that producing electricity from renewable sources is much more expensive than from fossil fuels.

He said that the ability to trade carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol may make it possible for the government to manage the high costs of renewable energy generation.

“But at the initial stage the government will have to provide a huge subsidy,” Khan said. He added that the government’s plan would only be viable if it promotes green energy without considering the economic costs.

At the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, Tapas Kumar Roy conceded that the cost of electricity from renewable sources is quite high, but said that solar power is still popular in rural areas for lighting, especially when compared to the cost of kerosene for lamps.

INVESTMENT NEEDED

The government believes investments totalling $2.24 billion will be required to reach its solar power target. It is seeking about $1.6 billion dollars in financing from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other development partners. The plan calls for the remainder to be funded by the government and the private sector.

Roy said that the ADB will hold an international workshop in Dhaka with other donor agencies in late September or early October to try to secure funds for the renewable energy programme.

The government is looking to generate green power from other sources also. An Indian company has proposed a pilot wind power project with a capacity of 15 MW, and private sector financing is in the pipeline for further wind projects with the potential to generate up to 200 MW.

The government is also studying the possibility of constructing geothermal power plants in the country’s northern Panchagarh district.

Abser Kamal, chief executive officer of Grameen Shakti, a pioneering organization in the renewable energy field in Bangladesh, said the government’s goal of generating 500 MW from renewable sources was possible but agreed that it would require huge a financial commitment.

Grameen Shakti has installed some 650,000 solar home systems across the country over the past 16 years.

Ruhul Quddus, head of the Rural Services Foundation, a Bangladeshi charity, said that the government was promoting renewable energy by providing soft loans. Twenty-nine organizations have partnered with IDCOL to install over one million solar home systems across the country. The total is expected to reach 1.5 million by 2015.

“We are going forward gradually. Though the initial investment is quite high, there is a huge prospect for solar energy in Bangladesh,” Quddus added.

Syful Islam is a journalist with The Financial Express newspaper in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: youths1990@yahoo.com

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/bangladesh-aims-for-big-growth-in-solar-energy-by-2015