By Greg Odogwu
if everything works out well, and the project goes as planned, Nigeria may become the centre of renewable energy innovation in the world. This is because a Nigerian scientist, Ejikeme P. Nwosu, has invented a process that converts urine into hydrogen-rich gases for cooking and electricity generation. The innovation was awarded an Invention Patent Right of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, while the abstract was published by the American Chemical Society. Last week, the Federal Ministry of Environment commenced the process of using it to supply energy to the Nigerian correctional centres.
It is instructive to note that this is not the first time biogas is used in prisons. Biogas is the mixture of gases produced by the breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen (anaerobically), primarily consisting of methane and carbon dioxide, and some hydrogen. Biogas can be produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste or food waste. It is renewable energy source, produced by anaerobic digestion with methanogen or anaerobic organisms, which digest material inside a closed system, or fermentation of the above mentioned biodegradable materials. This closed system is called an anaerobic digester, biodigester or a bioreactor.
According to a study done by the International Centre for Prison Studies in 2008, more than 10 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world. However, for every 100,000 population, western Africa and southern African countries have 47 and 219 prisoners respectively. Prisons mostly use fossil fuels or firewood for cooking, and so incur significant costs while adversely impacting on the ecosystem.
Hence, biogas is a reliable alternative to reduce cost and environmental impact. The need for the biogas systems also arose mainly due to lack of proper sanitation systems in prisons and the associated health risks; risk of groundwater pollution from outdated septic tanks; and general infrastructural decay. The biogas systems reuse fecal sludge and wastewater in a safe manner to produce cleaner energy, thereby solving most of the problems faced by prisons. In developing countries like ours, consumption of firewood far exceeds annual production, causing deforestation.
Therefore, governments are coming up with renewable energy programs to tackle the risk. Rwanda, Nepal and the Philippines were trailblazers in this direction. Sometime in 2015, a delegation of Nigerian Correctional Centre officials visited Rwanda to understudy such projects. As of then, the innovative African country had already secured 35% of its energy use in prisons through renewables while utilizing the effluents (from biogas production) for agricultural purposes, and the pellets for sundry energy uses.
This is why from then, Nigeria joined the eco-revolution in the correctional sector. A visible impact could be seen in Lagos. The Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison, Apapa, Lagos State, was named after the rural Kirikiri community in which it is situated. Established in 1955, it later became synonymous with the Nigerian Correctional Service (formerly Nigerian Prison Service), so much so that at the mention of “Kirikiri” everybody understands that you are talking about prison and jail term.
Interestingly, there were two things that made Kirikiri infamous, and which aptly represented the state of other correctional centres in the country. It was overcrowded, and it was smelly. Built for an official capacity of 1,056 inmates, it now houses about five times that number. This is typical. The Port Harcourt prison was built for 800, but now is holding more than 4000 inmates. This was why the United Kingdom announced in 2018 that it would build a new 112-bed wing, at Kirikiri, before it could facilitate the transfer of Nigerians prisoners from the UK.
Now, the other mark of infamy on Kirikiri – putrid ambience – is being cleaned up with the use of renewable energy, through a biogas production project. Biogas plant has been built at the Lagos prison, to manage human waste from the teeming inmates and produce biogas used as cooking gas. The main idea of the project is to manage night soil on site and completely eliminate constant sewage evacuation and leakages, while producing cooking gas to help reduce the use of firewood. In the same way Kirikiri is the poster boy for the Nigerian incarceration system, the biogas project is now steadily cascading to other penitentiaries.
Nevertheless, the revolution is very slow. This is why the indigenous innovation by the Nigerian chemist, Nwosu, has come at the right time. Known as the Ticlob-Lumos method, it is a climate-smart waste management protocol with separate urine channel; and separate faeces/other biodegradable wastes channel, for energy production. It was discovered under Lumos Laboratories Nigeria Limited, and developed under Ticlob-Lumos Partners, and patented as Ticlob-Lumos Method.
The TLM is a harmonious combination of urine and faeces energy potentials, which liberates hydrogen, ammonia and methane (all flammable gases), with other useful by-products. The gases have physical properties with no carbon content except for methane which has one carbon atom per four hydrogen atoms (the cleanest hydrocarbon). This method presently has three patent rights from the Nigerian government.
The value this method is bringing to the biogas generation process is that it will harness the hitherto waste urine feedstock. An average adult produces a litre of urine in a day. With this added to the already existing biogas production grid, the Nigeria’s correctional institution could thus become energy independent. With its 76,000 inmates, 34,000 staff and about 25,000 daily visitors, it can generate enough waste (feedstock) to convert to energy, for cooking and electricity.
Among the innovation is a urine diverting toilet for separation of urine from faeces. The other critical piece of technology is the bioreactor. It has been presented under “the invention patent right for the design and development of equipment for producing flammable gases from urine”, and this equipment was named Patrium Flask Reactor.
The other invention patent right is for developing a novel means of generating biomethane from biodegradable wastes, hydrogen-rich gases from urine and blending these gases in controlled proportion for use in either electricity generation or for cooking purposes.
“We used urine diverting toilets to separate urine from faeces, the faeces and other biodegradable wastes are converted to biomethane in the biodigester while separated urine are converted into hydrogen-rich flammable gases with the aid of the Patrium Flask Reactor,” the chemist had explained.
He said the innovation makes it easier to overcome one of the biggest challenges of hydrogen technology, which is storage.
“Having a blend of these avalanches of gases (hydrogen, methane, ammonia, hydrazine) in a single storage reduces the high pressure exerted by hydrogen if it were to be alone in line with Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressure. At reduced pressure, storage is easier and the cost of storage is also cheaper. Apart from this, usage of a blend of hydrocarbon (methane etc.) with hydrogen gives better flammability, reduces the carbon load contribution to the atmosphere and provides more heat that would ensure better combustion.”
According to Charles Ikeah, Director, Pollution Control and Environmental Health, Federal Ministry of Environment, Lumos Laboratories has succeeded in developing an indigenous process of producing biogas from separate chambers of digesters. He explained that this was why the ministry then commissioned the company for experiment at the Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja, with a further plan of scaling up the process for use in other public places – airports, abattoirs, motor parks.
gregodogwu@yahoo.com 08063601665
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