IIT-H developing systems for water treatment, biodiesel

: Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IIT-H) are developing algal-bacterial hybrid systems that can reduce wastewater treatment cost and provide practical routes to produce recyclable water and biodiesel.

The researchers hope their system would help rural communities in the long run, a press release from the IIT said here on Monday.

The immediate intended beneficiaries of the research, however, are the gated urban communities that have in-house plants for treating sewage, the release said.

The present sewage treatment facilities in the country can only treat about 26 billion litres per day, it said.

The unavailability of an extensive centralised system of wastewater treatment in class I cities and class II towns results in the discharge of untreated wastewater into water bodies and land, resulting in severe pollution and contamination issues, the release said.

The results of this socially relevant work have been published in the past couple of years in peer-review journals such asJournal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Water Environment Research andEnvironmental ScienceandPollution Research, it added.