$5m to find better ways to handle waste in Singapore

5 projects get NEA grant to tap new technology in disposing of waste
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 9 Feb 10;

SINGAPOREANS are tossing out 7,200 tonnes of waste a day, about the weight of 970 elephants.

This is 51/2 times what we have been discarding daily in 1970.

Going at this rate, the landfill on the island of Pulau Semakau off mainland Singapore will be full in 30 to 40 years.

This landfill, with a volume equivalent to 25,200 Olympic-size swimming pools, is now the only place here where rubbish is being buried.

No wonder the National Environment Agency (NEA) has stepped up its search for ways to cope with the looming mountain of rubbish. It has awarded almost $5 million to five research projects which aim to raise the technology bar in the handling of waste.

Mr Cheong Hock Lai, the director of the Environment Technology Office, said the current system - which turns waste into energy - is about 30 to 40 years old, so new technology is needed to make the process more cost efficient and to lessen the burden on existing plants.

Of the five projects, one by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) aims to transform landfills into energy-producing 'gas mines'.

NTU's Professor Ng Wun Jern explained that methane, a by-product of buried waste breaking down, can be harvested for use as an energy source.

Another gas produced in landfills, carbon dioxide, can be converted into a gum-like sugar, which can be returned to the landfill to stabilise the soil.

When rendered more stable this way, the landfill can be used as a construction site in 10 to 15 years.

Under current methods, landfills must be covered and left for 30 to 40 years before anything can be built on it, because potential gas leaks and subsidence can make them dangerous for construction.

Prof Ng's three-year project will also explore methods of stabilising landfills. He hopes to set up a pilot landfill site in 12 to 18 months, either on Pulau Semakau or the now-closed Lorong Halus landfill.

The second project which has received an NEA grant is being undertaken by Nanyang Polytechnic. This one will look for ways to reduce industrial pollution by using a catalyst to convert harmful emissions into water and nitrogen gas.

At the moment, titanium dioxide is used to neutralise the pollution on honeycomb filters; the Nanyang Polytechnic project will look into using cerium oxide instead, packed tightly in cylinders, to increase the pollution-absorption surface area. This will cut costs by half.

Of the other two projects from NTU, one will seek to make non-biodegradable plastic biodegradable; the other will look into maximising production of synthetic gas and liquid biofuels from waste.

The fifth project, by the National University of Singapore, will look at the recovery of heavy metals from electronic waste.

The NEA's Environment Technology Research Programme, announced last July, has a seed fund of $15 million for three years. Grants will be awarded every six months.

Related PDF "Waste Not"

NEA awards $4.8m to five research projects
They will look into waste management solutions for S'pore
Zeinab Yusuf Saiwalla, Business Times 9 Feb 10;

A STEP closer to its vision of establishing zero waste and zero landfills, the National Environment Agency (NEA) yesterday announced the awardees of the first Environment Technology Research Programme (ETRP) fund.

The five proposals were selected out of 67 that the ETRP received from the academia and industry at the close of RFP

A total of $4.8 million was awarded to five research projects to develop waste management solutions for Singapore.

This grant is part of the $15 million seed fund that the NEA will use to fund and support research and development (R&D) projects with commercial and industrial applications over three years.

Out of the five approved projects, three are from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), one from National University of Singapore (NUS) and one from Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP).

The projects were chosen for several criteria, including their possibilities to improve Singapore's waste management process as well as their potential for market applications.

For example, the project from NYP, which hopes to develop a chemical catalyst to replace precious metals-based catalysts such as titanium in reducing nitrogen oxides to harmless gases was chosen primarily for its cost effectiveness.

By replacing the titanium dioxide-based catalyst with the chemically produced cerium oxide, the project's principal investigator, Sim Gia Wen, estimates that this could translate into savings of almost 50 per cent.

Besides cost effectiveness, other projects were chosen for their environmental sustainability, such as NTU's proposal to convert municipal plastic waster into a useful resource to minimise waste and up-recycle it into a new resource.

The project led by associate professor Wang Jing-Yuan, will convert mixed plastic waste into higher value biodegradable polymers known as polyhydroxlyalkanoate (PHA) which can then be used to create higher-end plastic products such as surgical threads.

Currently, most plastics are incinerated and then deposited in landfills, which according to Assoc Prof Wang is not environmentally sustainable and hence he hopes that the project will eventually be able to be exported globally owing to its wide ranging benefits.

The five proposals were selected out of 67 that the ETRP received from the academia and industry at the close of the Request-For-Proposal (RFP) period on Aug 31, 2009.

Though 30 to 40 per cent of the proposals received were from those in the industry, departmental director of the Environment Technology Office, Cheong Hock Lai said that none were chosen due to their lack of focus on the research element.

'The proposals from private companies were more like business proposals than about research,' he added.

Nanyang Poly, NTU win NEA grants for waste management projects
Wang Eng Eng, Channel NewsAsia 8 Feb 10;

SINGAPORE: The day may come when the burning of waste will not pollute the air you breathe. That is what a team from Nanyang Polytechnic is working on.

It is one of five teams working on new and cost-efficient ways to manage waste with funds from the National Environment Agency (NEA).

The work to burn waste can cause havoc to the air, producing harmful substances like nitrogen oxides. The damage can be cut down by filtering out the substances.

The Nanyang Polytechnic team, led by lecturer Sim Gia Wen, has been working on a solution that will make a bigger difference.

Its project is to develop lower-cost cerium oxide catalyst elements to remove gaseous air pollutants. Currently, catalyst materials are based on the more expensive titanium dioxide.

Also working to save the environment is a team from Nanyang Technological University. Its job is to find a faster way to make landfills suitable for use - such as property development.

The answer lies in a bio-chemical agent that helps to stabilise the landfill faster.

Principal investigator, Professor Ng Wun Jern, said: "If you look at the typical landfill operations, we are looking at 30 to 40 years before the landfill is stabilised for the next phase of utilisation.

"We are looking at shortening it to 10 to 15 years, so that is quite a dramatic reduction in terms of time required."

A total of S$4.8 million has been given to five teams under NEA's Environment Technology Research Programme. They are expected to complete their projects in three years.

- CNA/ir

NEA hands out $4.8m to 5 projects
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 9 Feb 10;

SINGAPORE - They could turn household waste and discarded plastic bags into sources of energy, make air pollution control cheaper for power plants and incinerators, and ramp up the productivity of landfills in Singapore and the region.

Five research projects that could herald tomorrow's waste-management solutions were awarded a total of $4.8 million yesterday, in the first disbursement of the $15 million Environment Technology Research Programme.

The programme is administered by the National Environment Agency (NEA) and the Environment and Water Industry Development Council. It attracted 67 proposals.

Twenty-seven submissions were from the private sector, while the rest came from the academic sector.

The winning proposals were chosen for their market application and overseas potential, and their contribution to sustainable, cost-effective waste-management solutions, said Mr Cheong Hock Lai, director of NEA's Environmental Technology Office.

The second call for proposals is ongoing, and will close on March 1. Applicants are invited to submit ideas on waste-to-energy, waste-to-resource and special waste treatment technologies. Ideas on prolonging the lifespan of Semakau Landfill are also welcome.

Eliminating the problem of plastic waste
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 9 Feb 10;

Singaporeans are massive users of plastic bags, generating 680,000 tonnes of plastic waste annually, of which only 9 per cent is recycled. The remaining 620,000 tonnes is incinerated, and Nanyang Technological University professor Wang Jing-Yuan and his teammates want to slash this amount by half.

Their game plan: Pick the right bacteria, feed them with oil derived from plastic waste, and harvest the plastic-like biodegradable compound they produce.

The latter is called PHA (or polyhydroxylalkanoate), and can be used to make high-value products such as surgical threads.

If the researchers are eventually able to scale up their production of PHA, carrier bags and disposable utensils could one day be made from PHA, eliminating the problem of non-biodegradable plastic waste.

Current production methods of PHA are costly, and use raw materials like sugar or glucose instead of waste. The researchers hope their project, which has been awarded $1 million, can eventually lower prices of PHA, which now costs US$3 ($4.20) to US$5 per kg.

Speeding up landfill reclamation
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 9 Feb 10;
Landfills now require 20 to 40 years in order to stabilise, but the time span could be halved, if the researchers from the National Technological University (NTU) and construction technologies firm Chemilink achieve a breakthrough. And instead of using reclaimed landfills for parks or golf courses, Professor Ng Wun Jern of NTU dreams of seeing buildings sprout from them.

Landfilling is the most common waste disposal method in the world, yet many of them are poorly designed and operated. Instead of "holes in the ground", Professor Ng sees them as massive grounds for biological processes to take place.

To speed up landfill reclamation, Prof Ng - whose project received a $1.8 million grant - aims to feed to bacteria the carbon produced from burning gases emitted by the landfill. The resulting polymers (large chemical molecules) would then be pumped back into the landfill, stabilising them. The team hopes to perform pilot tests on landfills in Lorong Halus, or a segment of the Semakau Landfill.

Cutting the cost of removing pollutants
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 9 Feb 10;

During the burning of fossil fuels, nitrous oxides and cancer-causing dioxins are produced. To make it cheaper for power plants and waste incinerators to remove these pollutants, a team from Nanyang Polytechnic is looking for a cheaper catalyst than titanium dioxide, which is commonly used now.

Catalysts react with the nitrous oxides to form nitrogen and water, and the team's catalyst of choice is cerium oxide, which they say is up to 50 per cent cheaper than titanium dioxide.

Cerium oxide is already a proven technology and used in car exhaust systems, but the Nanyang Polytechnic team, led by Ms Sim Gia Wen, aims to develop an effective prototype for the power generation and waste management industry. Their project has been given a $586,200 grant.