A student from IIT- Kharagpur, Manoj Mandelia has devised a way to generate electricity from sewage water.

“I developed a product which uses the concept of microbial fuel cell, a bio-electrochemical system that drives current by mimicking bacterial interactions found in nature,” he said.

Mandelia is 23 years old and is pursuing integrated MTech from the premier institute. His project named Localised Operation of Bio-cells Using Sewage (LOCUS) is able to reduced chemical oxygen demand in sewage water by about 60-80 per cent.

He explained that LOCUS is a microbial fuel cell which along with sewage treatment systems can treat waste water and also generate electricity. He conducted his tests at the Fermentation Technology Lab of IIT, Kharagpur.

The Fermentation Technology Lab of IIT, Kharagpur honored him as a young Indian innovator during its EmTech India Conference earlier in the month.