BHUBANESWAR: The East Coast Railway’s (ECoR) Carriage Repair Workshop at Mancheswar will set up a scrap to energy plant in the workshop here.General Manager, ECoR, Vidya Bhushan on Monday laid foundation stone for the plant that will use polycrack technology to process the scrap and waste into energy.
According to ECoR officials this is a first-of-its-kind plant in Indian Railways and third in India. While the first plant has been set up at Moti Bagh in Delhi, the second one has been set up by Infosys at Bengaluru. Estimated at `2 crore, the plant is set to be commissioned by January 2020.
Chief Workshop Manager of Mancheswar workshop Manas Poddar said a large amount of scrap is generated from their workshop daily which is sent to landfill in absence of proper disposal method. “But, now we have polycrack technology which will help us in generating energy from the scrap,” he said.
Poddar said polycrack technology - the first patented heterogenous catalytic process which converts non-ferrous scraps into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon and water - doesn’t require pre-segregation of waste for their processing. Besides, drying of waste is also not required in it due to its high tolerance to moisture. Waste in the polycrack plant is processed and reformed within 24 hours, he said and added that the plant which has fully automated system does not emit any hazardous pollutants into the atmosphere.
The plant can process all kinds of plastics, petroleum sludge, unsegregated municipality solid waste having 50 pc moisture content, e-waste, automobile fluff, organic waste and garden waste.
Its safe and efficient system and built-in safety features enables an unskilled user to operate the plant’s machine with ease for which it requires minimum manpower.Sources said commissioning of the plant requires smaller area compared to conventional method of processing. Gas generated in the plant can be re-used to provide energy to the workshop while the carbon powder can be used to make bricks. The light diesel oil generated in this process can also be sold for other uses.
ECoR officials said the waste generated from carriage workshop, coaching depot and railway station in the city can be used as feeder material for the plant. The capacity of the plant will be 500 kg scrap/waste per day. The operational cost of the plant will be around `25 lakh per annum. The byproducts generated from plant can fetch around `12 lakh to ECoR every year.