Exploring Clean Energy Generation With Waste Water

The number of times you wash your face, hands, have a bath or use the flush, all generate waste water. This is the section of water that gets taken away from your house to a sewage treatment plant. The waste water is then processed in the sewage treatment plant before the harmless by products are then released back into the natural environment. Usually via a canal back in to a local water body.

In the process of this treatment the thermal hydrolysis that occurs helps to reduce solids using high temperature and high pressure. This is where biogas is created as a by product. Biogas is a mix of hydrocarbon gases which can be used as fuels in their own right. By harnessing the biogas in the sewage treatment plant, it is possible to generate this clean energy source with a process that already must take place.

It’s like shooting two birds with one arrow. The waste water is managed and treated, while the biogas is produced and canned for use as a fuel in the future. The only draw back to this science project is the fact that thermal hydrolysis is an expensive proposition for a sewage treatment plant to install. However given the potential good that it will do to the planet and to the environment, it may be a cost well worth considering.