Executive Summary : | Establishment of sustainable approaches for improving the performance of landfills in developing countries has always been crucial and is the often a missing aspect, for municipal solid waste handling. Un engineered landfill sites which are extensively adopted in many cities of India are cited as potential sources of air and water pollution. Hence there is an urgent need to identify low-cost and sustainable techniques to control gas emissions and to treat leachate . Research from the past has brought out that Biochar , which is produced by the thermal conversion of biomass is established to have high ability to adsorb various types of contaminants and green house gases. Therefore it is imperative to carry out investigations, so that biochar can be exploited as a medium for use in landfill covers and barriers. However, as the properties of biochar are highly variable with reference to the types of feedstock and thermal conversion processes, its interactions cannot be generalized. Moreover the characteristics of leachate and other contaminants in the landfills are largely governed by the geography, quality and quantity of waste. All these point to the possible complex interactions and to the need for a scientific research to explore the mechanism behind these before suggesting the use of biochar in landfill barriers and covers. Moreover, the strength and hydraulic characteristics of biochar amended mediums need to be evaluated as they control the structural stability of systems such as bio covers, permeable reactive barriers, base liners etc., which are enhanced with biochar .Moreover the possibility of modifying/activating biochar for better performance and also the possibility of combining biochar wit other wastes like slag in landfill cover for better economy also need to be explored. The proposed research work aims to cater to all these requirements and expect to come up with effective and sustainable system for assisted by biochar use for application in land fills . The work aims to look at the long term suitability and also envisages to develop the much needed guidelines for use of biochar in waste disposal components such as landfill covers and barriers . The proposed works targets multidimensional sustainable solution and the detailed plan include extensive characterization of different biochar using multiple instrumental techniques, batch and column sorption studies, column studies for methane oxidation ,leaching studies , evaluation of strength and hydraulic characteristics with three different biochars (modified and unmodified)and its mixtures with three different soils and slag from blast furnace . The study will support innovation by simultaneously using modified and activated biochar produced from waste biomass and will surely improve the knowledge on design guidelines for sustainable land fill coves and barriers with improved performance. |