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Chemingineering | The Plastic Pandemic

K. Sahasranaman (Independent Industry Consultant)
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Chemingineering | The Plastic Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the public perception of plastic, promoting its profligate use. Overnight it has been transformed from a muchmaligned villain to a benign angel. Plastic has staged a dramatic comeback in many applications and the resulting waste is piling up. The 3R – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – has been one of the biggest collateral casualties of the ongoing pandemic. Over the last few years, a strong and sustained campaign had created a widespread awareness among the citizens about the responsible use of plastic. Many countries enacted legislation to ban or restrict single-use plastic. All this good work has been undone in the last few months as people have adopted the plastic as armor in their battle against the coronavirus. The problem is expected to grow worse as the pandemic shows little signs of abating.

COVID Waste
When COVID-19 was its peak in China, hospitals in Wuhan generated 240 tons of waste every day, a six-fold increase compared to normal times; much of this was plastic. It is estimated that the USA will produce an entire year’s medical waste in 2 months because of the pandemic. Discarded masks and other items of PPE are regularly turning up in beaches, even in remote areas, raising concerns among environmentalists.

In Thailand, plastic waste has increased 4 times to 6000 tons per day, mainly due to increased home deliveries of food. The sub 50-micron plastic bag is becoming ubiquitous again across cities in India. The cling film has returned in a big way for wrapping vegetables and fruits. PPE and food packaging are the prime contributors to the mounting plastic waste. Plastic is the mainstay of PPEs used by frontline healthcare workers in their battle against COVID-19. The single-use plastic is widely perceived as a hygienic barrier in day to day transactions like retail shopping and delivery of food to homes. Consumers are reluctant to reuse and recycle plastic out of fear of infection and are irresponsibly disposing them of.

Waste Collection
The problem of burgeoning plastic waste is compounded by the near-paralysis of waste collection and recycling. Due to restrictions of movement, rag pickers have all but vanished from the streets of the developing world. Elsewhere, waste recycling plants are operating at sub-optimal capacities because of staffing problems. Surreptitious and illegal disposal of wastes is also on the rise. The pandemic has resulted in a massive disruption, if not a total break- down, of the waste management infrastructure.

Backburner
While the COVID-19 pandemic has unequivocally demonstrated that we cannot live without
plastic, we cannot afford to let sustainability take a backseat. What we are sowing today could return to haunt us once the dust of the pandemic has settled down. Sustainability was widely anticipated to be a big theme of the year2020. It was the year when companies
were expected to launch innovative alternatives to plastic packaging. However, with the onsetof COVID-19, many such plans  have been put on the backburner.

Some minds in the industry are even clamoring for a reassessment of the plastic. There are also concerns that some businesses are using the pandemic as an excuse to aggressively push back the various plastic bans imposed earlier. While the battle against COVID-19 dominates our minds, it would be foolish to turn a blind eye to the problem
of plastic waste.

Circular Economy
The New Plastics Economy is a global initiative to reduce plastic waste. Spearheaded by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and supported by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), it aims to reduce the amount of plastics sent out to landfills through the application of 3Rs. Launched in 2016, the program aims to establish a Circular Economy (CE) for plastics. Over 850 entities, including some top names from the FMCG industry, have signed up for the program. The signatories have committed themselves to make all of their plastic packaging reusable,  recyclable, or compostable by the year 2025. Additionally, there is a promise of having a minimum of 25% recycled content in their plastic packaging by 2025. These are lofty goals. Would the pandemic throw a spanner into this ambitious project is anybody’s guess. The good news is that so far, none of the signatories have sought to renege on their commitments because of the pandemic pressure.

Recycled vs Virgin
The fate of plastic waste recycling is inexorably linked to the price of crude oil and thereby
hangs a tale. While the demand for plastic has been surging in recent months, the trend is quite the reverse for crude oil. Oil demand has plummeted due to travel restrictions and sub-optimal industrial production. The consequent low oil price translates into cheaper virgin plastics. If the oil price stays low for a long period, it will make recycling uneconomic. It will freeze fresh investments into plastic recycling projects, further pushing up the cost of the recycled material. Will businesses stick to their commitment to CE if the price gap between virgin plastic and recycled material widens is the moot question.

Calls are out to governments to provide fiscal mechanisms to incentivize the recyclers and insulate them from the vagaries of the oil market. This could be in the form of a tax on the virgin plastics equivalent to the environmental and social benefits of recycling.

Redesign
Recycling is not the only strategy to manage plastic waste. Serious efforts are underway to rethink and redesign plastic packaging. A supermarket chain in Ireland has redesigned its milk bottles to have the same strength and durability but with 20% less plastic. Unilever has set a target to reduce the weight of its packaging by one-third by the end of this year.
Sustainable alternatives can be used to pack food for home delivery and customers can be rewarded if they return old containers on the next delivery. Consumer education
has to be constant.

Epilogue
The COVID-19 pandemic has rudely disrupted the timetable of plastic waste management through multiple factors. This may sound sweet to some ears in the chemical industry, which supplies the raw material to the plastics industry. But the chemical industry is conscious of its role in promoting the responsible use of plastics. Industry, government, and citizens have to join hands to promote the New Plastic Economy to ensure that we don’t suffer due to another pandemic – the pandemic of plastic waste. The circular economy for plastic has to be put back on rails.

Readers’ responses may be sent to:
k.sahasranaman@gmail.com or
chemindigest@gmail.com

Researchers Develop New Biofuel System for H2 Production

Chemical Industry Digest
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A team of researchers at UNIST led by led by Professor Jungki Ryu in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering have developed new biofuel system that uses lignin found in biomass for the production of hydrogen. The system decomposes lignin with a molybdenum (Mo) catalyst to produce high value-added compounds, and the electrons extracted in the process effectively produce hydrogen. The findings of this research have been published in ACS Catalysis.
Through the study, Professor Ryu and his research team have developed a new biofuel system that uses lignin as an electron donor in a way to reduce the overall inefficiency of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). This is the principle of using molybdenum-based inexpensive metal catalysts (PMA) to break down lignin at low temperatures, and extract the electrons produced in the process to produce hydrogen. The new device has been designed to move electrons from lignin, along the wire to the electrode where the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) occurs. “With this new system, we can produce hydrogen with less energy (overvoltage) than conventional water electrolysis, as there is no need for oxygen reactions, requiring high energy and precious metal catalysts. The new system was capable of producing hydrogen at a much lower potential (0.95 volts),” says Hyeonmyeong Oh (Combined M.S/Ph.D. of Energy and Chemical Engineering, UNIST), the first author of the study. “The new biofuel system is a technology that produces hydrogen and valuable chemicals using cheap catalysts and low voltages instead of expensive catalysts such as platinum (Pt),” says Professor Ryu. “Our work is also significant, as it presents a new way to replace oxygen-producing reactions in the electrolysis of water.”

Chemists Develop New Algorithm Which Predicts Compositions of New Materials

Chemical Industry Digest
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A team of RIKEN chemists have developed a new algorithm that can predict the compositions of new materials. They have designed a machine-learning algorithm that has been trained with the compositions and properties of known materials can predict the properties of unknown materials, saving time in the lab.

Since there is a trade-off between voltage and current, it is tricky to discover new materials. Therefore, Kei Terayama, currently at Yokohama City University while initially at RIKEN Centre for Advanced Intelligence Project and his-coworkers have developed BLOX (BoundLess Objective free eXploration), that can locate out-of-trend materials. The team demonstrated the algorithm’s power by using it to identify eight out-of-trend molecules with a high degree of photoactivity from a drug-discovery database. The properties of these molecules exhibited good agreement with those predicted by the algorithm. “We had concerns about the accuracy of the calculation but were delighted to see that the calculation was correct. This shows the potential of computation-driven materials development,” says Terayama. BLOX uses machine learning to generate a prediction model for key material properties. It does this by combining data for materials randomly selected from a materials database with experimental or calculation results. BLOX then uses the model to predict the properties of a new set of materials. From these new materials, BLOX identifies the one that deviates the most from the overall distribution. The properties of that material are determined by experiment or calculations and then used to update the machine learning model, and the cycle is repeated. BLOX imposes no restrictions on the range of material structures and compositions that can be explored. It can thus range far and wide in its search for outlying materials.

Study Suggests using Hetergenous Catalysts Increases Selectively of CO2 Photoreduction

Chemical Industry Digest
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A group of researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences led by Prof. Wang Ruihu from Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter (FJIRSM) have presented demonstration of how covalent organic frameworks (COFs) can be used heterocatalysts for photocatalytic CO2 reduction. The study has been published in Advanced Functional Material. The researchers hosted metalloporphyrin-based carbon dots (M-PCD@TD-COF, M = Ni, Co and Fe) for selective CO2 photoreduction.
The researchers developed a simple but effective protocol for rational design of COFs-based photocatalytic systems. These materials are readily fabricated through facile adsorption of molecular catalysts by COFs and subsequent pyrolysis. The method effectively solves problems of COFs in terms of crystalline difficulties and the limited metal-containing building blocks, which enriches the number of COFs-based catalytic materials. The importance of this protocol was highlighted by the enhanced activity of CO2-to-CO conversion. COFs provide an environment for CO2 adsorption and activation on metalloporphyrin active sites, thus allowing for efficient CO2-to-CO conversion of both pure CO2 and the simulated flue gas. The method for photocatalytic CO2 reduction provides a direction for the development of photocatalytic materials. The protocol for the integration of COFs and carbon dots not only solves problems in COFs-based photocatalytic systems, but also could be extended to a broad range of materials consisting of various COFs and guest catalyst materials for solar energy conversion and other applications

Transform E-Waste to Develop Metal Coating

Chemical Industry Digest
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A typical recycling process converts large quantities of items made of a single material into more of the same. However, this approach isn’t feasible for e-waste, because they contain small amounts of many different materials that cannot be readily separated. Researchers have recently reported a selective, small-scale microrecycling strategy, which they use to convert old printed circuit boards and monitor components into a new type of strong metal coating. The study has been published in ACS Omega.
E-waste contains potentially valuable substances that can be used to modify the performance of other materials or to manufacture new, valuable materials. Previous researches have shown that carefully calibrated high temperature-based processing can selectively break and reform chemical bonds in waste to form new, environmentally friendly materials. Based on the properties of copper and silica compounds, researchers suspected that, after extracting them from e-waste, they could combine them to create a durable new hybrid material ideal for protecting metal surfaces.
In a bid to do so, the researcher’s first heated glass and plastic powder from old computer monitors to 2,732 °F, generating silicon carbide nanowires. They then combined the nanowires with ground-up circuit boards, put the mix on a steel substrate then heated it up again. This time the thermal transformation temperature selected was 1,832 °F, melting the copper to form a silicon-carbide enriched hybrid layer atop the steel. Microscope images revealed that, when struck with a nanoscale indenter, the hybrid layer remained firmly affixed to the steel, without cracking or chipping. It also increased the steel’s hardness by 125%. The team says that this microrecycling has the potential to transform e-waste into advanced new surface coatings without the use of expensive raw materials.

Study Suggests Converting PPE into Biofuel

Chemical Industry Digest
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A new study published by experts from The University of Petroleum and Energy Studies have showed that plastic from used personal protective equipment (PPE) can, and should, be transformed into renewable liquid fuels. The study has been published in the peer-reviewed Taylor & Francis journal Biofuels.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Sapna Jain explains that the transformation of PPE into biocrude, a type of synthetic fuel, will not just prevent the severe after-effects to the environment but also produce a source of energy”.

She explains that the proposed strategy is a suggestive measure addressing the anticipated problem of disposal of PPE. During the current COVID-19 pandemic specifically, PPE is being designed for single use followed by disposal. Once these plastic materials are discharged into the environment they end up in landfill or oceans, as their natural degradation is difficult at ambient temperature. They need decades to decompose. Recycling these polymers requires both physical methods and chemical methods. Reduction, reuse and recycling are the three pillars of sustainable development that can help to prevent the disposal of plastic to the environment.
The research team reviewed many related research articles while focusing on the structure of polypropylene, its suitability for PPE, and why it poses an environmental threat and methods of recycling this polymer. Their conclusive findings suggest that PPE waste to be converted into fuel using pyrolysis. It is a chemical process for breaking down plastic at high temperature without oxygen. “Pyrolysis is the most commonly used chemical method whose benefits include the ability to produce high quantities of bio-oil which is easily biodegradable.   There is always a need for alternative fuels or energy resources to meet our energy demands. The pyrolysis of plastics is one of the methods to mitigate our energy crisis,” says Dr. Bhawna Yadav Lamba, co-author of the study. She concludes by saying that the liquid fuel produced from plastics is clean and has fuel properties similar to fossil fuels.”

Researchers Develop Nano-Sponges of Solid Acids to Transform Carbon Dioxide to Fuel and Plastic Waste to Chemicals

Chemical Industry Digest
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Researchers have developed nano-solid acids that can convert CO2 to fuel(dimethyl ether) and plastic to chemicals(hydrocarbons). Their research has been published in Nature Communications.  Solid acids are heterogeneous catalysts, which have the potential to replace environmentally harmful liquid acids in some of the most important processes, such as hydrocarbon cracking, alkylation, as well as plastic waste degradation and carbon dioxide to fuel conversion. Crystalline zeolites and amorphous aluminosilicates are among the best two solid acids. Zeolites are strongly acidic, however, they are limited by their inherent microporosity, causing extreme diffusion limitation; and although aluminosilicates are mesoporous, they suffer from low acidity and moderate stability. The researchers, therefore, faced a challenge to design and synthesize solid acids that have properties of both zeolites and aluminosilicates.
By using the techniques of bicontinuous microemulsion droplets as a soft template, Prof. Vivek Polshettiwar’s group at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, synthesized amorphous zeolites with a nano-sponge morphology, exhibiting both zeolitic (strong acidity) and amorphous aluminosilicate (mesoporous high surface area) properties. The presence of zeolite-like bridging silanol in AAS was proved by various catalytic reactions (styrene oxide ring-opening, vesidryl synthesis, Friedel-Crafts alkylation, jasminaldehyde synthesis, m-xylene isomerization, and cumene cracking), which requires strong acidic sites and larger pore sizes. The synergy between strong acidity and accessibility was reflected in the fact that AAS showed better performance than state-of-the-art zeolites and amorphous aluminosilicates. This was also confirmed by detailed solid-state NMR studies. Thus, it was clear that the material possesses strongly acidic zeolite-like bridging silanol sites, even though materials are not crystalline but amorphous. Therefore, they fall into a new class of materials at the interface between crystalline zeolite and amorphous aluminosilicate
Thus, the approach has the potential to allow the development of solid acid catalysis for plastic degradation as well as carbon dioxide to fuel at the significant rates, scales, and stabilities required making the process economically competitive. The protocol has scientific and technological advantages, owing to its superior activity and stability.

Researchers Develop Proton Pump of Respiratory Chain Work in a Synthetic Cell

Chemical Industry Digest
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Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg, the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, and the University of Halle are constructing a synthetic cell. They have used an enzyme found in bacteria to assemble one crucial part of the respiratory chain and made it functional in an artificial polymer membrane.
“We want to construct a new cell from scratch by gradually combining individual components into a living system with a metabolism,” says Ivan Ivanov, a scientist from the working group of Kai Sundmacher, Director at the Max Planck Institute in Magdeburg. In a recent study, the researchers looked for an artificial polymer that has the properties of a cell membrane and could also play its role in energy metabolism. The researchers have found a polymer (the surfactant PDMS-g-PEO) that acts as a membrane in place of the natural phospholipids and can thus form vesicles. The team of Max Planck scientists have integrated the proton pump bo3 oxidase into the synthetic membrane. The oxidase reduces oxygen also in the artificial membrane and thus constitutes the final step of cellular respiration. As the researchers have shown, the enzyme pumps protons into the interior of the vesicle, thereby creating a prerequisite for the production of ATP. The artificial membrane is also nearly impermeable to protons, yet sufficiently fluid and highly stable against harmful oxygen radicals. The bending rigidity of the polymer membrane is also similar to that of a natural membrane.

Magnetic Stirrer Bar with an Integrated Chemical Process Monitoring System

Chemical Industry Digest
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Automatic, remote data collection can make chemical processes more reliable, as well as less labor intensive and safer. Miniaturized computer systems and wireless technology are offering scientists new ways to keep tabs on reactions without the need for larger, cumbersome equipment. In a proof-of-concept study in ACS Sensors, researchers describe an inexpensive new device that functions like a conventional magnetic stir bar, but that can automatically measure and transmit information on a solution’s color, viscosity and a variety of other attributes to a smart phone or computer.
This technology has begun to make inroads into chemistry labs, but options for scientists looking to remotely mix their reactions and monitor several parameters while those reactions occur remain quite scarce, limited and expensive. Nikolay Cherkasov, Dmitry Isakov and colleagues wanted to develop a device capable of simultaneously detecting numerous parameters using freely available open source software and easy-to-get, inexpensive components.
The team made two versions of the Smart Stirrer based on different integrated circuits, one a microcontroller and the other an all-in-one system on a chip. To customize the Smart Stirrer for different applications, the team used a modular design, in which sensors can be added as needed. In experiments, they confirmed they could detect color, electrical conductivity and, with careful calibration, viscosity. Additional low-cost commercially available sensors, as well as custom ones, could be used to adapt the device for many new applications, the researchers say. They note one limitation: the narrow range of temperatures within which the Smart Stirrer can function, a restriction that they say is inherent to most digital electronics. Ultimately, they predict that this approach could provide a platform for digitizing chemistry in research labs and industrial manufacturing.

Innovative Approach for a Resilient Water Infrastructure in Asia and The Pacific

Chemical Industry Digest
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Innovative Approach for a Resilient Water Infrastructure in Asia and The Pacific

Abstract:

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has reinforced the vital importance of resilient water and wastewater infrastructure and services as well as hygiene and behavioural change to protect human health.

In Asia and the Pacific, the development and management of such infrastructure and services faced significant challenges, considering also the need to tackle climate change, recurring disasters, and other crisis events. The COVID-19 crisis may exacerbate the situation even further.

To bring about change, ADB promotes an innovative approach to design, procure, and implement resilient water and wastewater infrastructure and hygiene behavioural change to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.  ADB’s innovative approach applies strategic procurement planning, focusing on operations and maintenance of infrastructure and innovative technologies to deliver reliable services to increasing populations. The strategic procurement planning at the project processing stage assesses procurement risks and supply market capacity. It considers the future performance of water systems, especially how and by whom the infrastructure will be operated and maintained, and its use of climate-friendly and low carbon technologies. This will contribute to developing a resilient infrastructure at an optimal quality and cost, and attracting further a much-needed financing and trust in the water sector.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has ingrained in people’s minds that resilient water and wastewater infrastructure and services as well as hygiene and behavioural change are critical to protecting human health not only in normal times, but even more so during infectious disease outbreaks.

The people operating water and wastewater utilities have been praised for their efforts during this difficult period. Global Water Intelligence dedicated 25 June to water workers, launching a hashtag to thank them for their engagement during this crisis. All important factors, such as water service providers and utilities workers, development partners, private sector, non-government organizations, and communities mobilized expeditiously and efficiently to ensure continuity of water and wastewater services, and to implement Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programs to promote population health, welfare and development.

Considering the need of tackling climate change, and recurring disasters and other crisis events, water workers’ activities are becoming more complex, specialized, and modernized. Besides the vital role and continuity of engagement of water workers, technological innovations such as digitization and remote monitoring of assets were seen as critical during the recent pandemic. A study developed by Piers Clark, CEO of Isle Utilities, has highlighted as one of its important conclusions that water utilities need to engage more with remote technology using automation and decision intelligence. In line with this, a 2020 study from Black and Veatch shows that only 20% of utilities surveyed are using digital solutions to effectively implement their activities. In a recent presentation to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Taqsem Khan, CEO of Dhaka WASA highlighted the importance of digital systems and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) to inspire teams and manage water service continuity and other resources such as smart metering systems, and online bill payment.

Many utilities, which developed business continuity plans to cope with the new normal, are still in crisis mode and in the process of reverting to their usual business costs: the 2020 Black and Veatch study shows that the crisis impact on the water utility business is expected to be at about $17 billion for clean water utilities and $14 billion for drinking water utilities, due to challenges in billing, collection, and operating health risks.  While the world is already on the curve to miss Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 targets (to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all), the COVID-19 crisis may exacerbate the diversion further.

On an optimistic note, one of the clear priorities of post-COVID-19 “new normal” will be increased support to utilities to provide everybody with access to water and wastewater services as per SDG-6. Governments may decide to engage even further in promoting and developing resilient water and wastewater infrastructure and associated WASH programs, which require minimal access to water to engage visible and sustainable communities’ behavioural change.

Still, the reliability and sustainability of water and wastewater infrastructure remain a challenge. Resilient infrastructure is designed and developed to address present and future needs and shocks at an optimized cost that includes relevant technology and is adapted to climate change, is operated efficiently with adapted capacities and brings reliable services to people. The question now is how. How can these be developed? How can international institutions such as ADB innovate to design, procure, and implement resilient water and wastewater infrastructure and hygiene behavioural change to put SDG-6 back on track? What should not be missed in the coming crucial years?

To bring about change, ADB is promoting an innovative approach as described below using strategic procurement planning, focusing on operations and maintenance of infrastructure, and introducing technology and innovations to deliver reliable services to increasing populations.

A Challenging Context

The World Health Organization estimated that in 2015, 2.1 billion people worldwide lacked safely managed drinking water, with climate change amplifying every year the frequency and severity of climate impacts on water resources. The latest United Nations report on progress towards the SDGs states: “More efficient use and management of water are critical to addressing the growing demand for water, threats to water security, and the increasing frequency and severity of droughts and floods resulting from climate change.” According to a UNESCAP report, around 260 million people in Asia and the Pacific still don’t have access to a protected source of water.  Resources are more constrained. Despite years of efforts from the public sector, private sector, and development partners, lack of efficient and sustainable systems to manage water and wastewater services is a big concern. The governance and organization of the relevant institutions in the water and wastewater sector are still grappling with outdated technical, managerial, and tariff models.

The development and management of water resources, infrastructure, and services in the Asian region have mostly been insufficient, especially in cities which, in most cases, are significantly lagging behind the urbanization. Recently, severe water shortage hit a number of cities, including Cape Town, Chennai, and Manila in 2019, as water resources are depleting while urban water demand is continuously increasing. In many cities in Asia, ever-increasing quantities of water need to be sourced and treated to satisfy growing demand. In many cases, a significant amount of water is lost in non-revenue water (NRW), either through physical leaks due to dilapidated and worn-out pipes or through commercial losses due to lack of customer registration, metering and billing systems. Inefficient water networks often have low or variable pressure that severely impacts the quality of water delivered to customers as wastewater can infiltrate the water network.

Furthermore, such water losses severely impact the energy efficiency of water systems. A 2018 study developed in Georgia by the Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA) demonstrated the strong linkages between the high power costs for a water utility and high NRW. Better leakage control, as well as recommended measures towards proper management, billing, and operations, could result in significant electricity savings. This is so promising that in 2018, ADB has developed the Screening Tool for Energy Evaluation in Projects (STEEP) for water and wastewater systems. This tool has been piloted on several projects, which have identified potential energy savings to over 50%, compared with the energy use of the implemented design.

As for wastewater, the infrastructure situation is even more worrying. While in 2017, 1.2 billion people across Asia and the Pacific lacked access to basic sanitation services, a recent study conducted by Wateraid to understand the sustainability of large wastewater treatment plants after project completion has shown that the resilience of wastewater treatment plants is low: with an average of about $1 billion of yearly official development assistance, more than half of the plants constructed were never commissioned or taken off-line or continually overloaded/underloaded. Commonly, projects were not well adapted to operations and maintenance, and the infrastructure was not properly built, sized, or operated, due to lack of operating staff capacity.

Such lack of effectiveness or poor sustainability makes it more challenging to attract future investments either from the public or private parties, and also raises questions about the way the projects were designed, procured, or operated. The sustainability criteria are closely linked with the procurement modality that defines how the infrastructure projects will be developed, designed, implemented, and managed.

The strategic procurement planning revolution

ADB has developed its long-term Strategy 2030 for achieving a Prosperous, Inclusive, Resilient, and Sustainable Asia and the Pacific, which stresses that efforts to eradicate poverty should focus on delivering services to the population. The infrastructure is not a target by itself but rather it’s capacity to deliver the quality of services to the population in a resilient way.

To support this, ADB in 2017 adopted a new procurement framework that shifts from one-size-fits-all to a fit-for-purpose approach with a greater focus on quality and value for money. The new procurement framework also introduced the Strategic Procurement Planning at project processing stage to assess procurement risks and supply market capacity, develop best options for procurement of goods, works and services, and inform the project design. Such Strategic Procurement Planning is more effective as it facilitates (i) ADB and project owners to better understand and analyze the diversity of technologies available in the market so as to bring innovative and state-of-art approaches, (ii) determine potential players in the market, (iii) propose outreach strategies to disseminate information about projects and make procurement packages attractive for potential players, and (iv) assess the main risks in the bidding process, and propose mitigating measures. This ultimately ensures the selection of quality suppliers and thus better value for money for the projects.

This strategic procurement planning is a big change. It ensures that the overwhelming efforts to initiate, negotiate, conceive, and build infrastructure should focus on the concept design as well as on a realistic assessment that the project design is strategically prepared to procure what the market can provide at an optimal quality and cost, and with a modality adapted to the capacity of the institution developing it.

This fit-for-purpose approach in project design and procurement arrangements is expected to result in improved quality and greater value-for-money, reduced time to deliver procurement outcomes, and higher quality suppliers bidding for projects, with strengthened procurement capacity of developing member countries. The operating environment study should include the borrower’s capacity and capability assessment, as it is a key component of how the operation and maintenance services should be considered during project design and supported during implementation. Then the market analysis provides feedback on the actors potentially interested and eligible to do the works. The country and sector procurement risk assessment analyses the severity of risks and identifies strategic options. The procurement strategy is then selected, including bidding procedures, contracting strategy, and contract management.

In line with the development of resilient infrastructure, the strategic procurement planning answers two key questions: (a) how to ensure at the start of a project that operation and maintenance of the infrastructure facility will continue to deliver its benefits over many years and that its assets last their lifetime; and (b) how to ensure that new technology and innovation, including climate-resilient and green technology, can offer better financial and environmental benefits?

Introducing Operation and Maintenance in Infrastructures Projects

The strategic procurement planning should consider the future performance of water systems, especially how and by whom the infrastructure will be operated and maintained. Most advanced utilities have a comprehensive approach to locate, identify, qualify, and manage infrastructure assets, as well as assess the financial requirements to maintain them at a targeted performance. In Asia, though, this is often not the case.

Many utilities require a systematic way to prepare asset management plans for timely repairs, rehabilitation, or replacement of assets, and to develop an effective strategy for long-term funding of operation and maintenance services. These large infrastructure projects should fully consider operation and maintenance aspects and capacity building from the design stage as this sets the foundation for the sustainability of the infrastructure and the efficiency of the services provided.

Operation and maintenance components can be introduced using different modalities. In standard employer-designed contracts, the design of the infrastructure is done by the employer, the construction by the contractor, and the operations and maintenance by the operating public utility. Procurement modalities request for works only with detailed design included in the bidding document, and operations and maintenance may be introduced for the first few years, as in the West Bengal Water supply project, the Rajasthan Water Supply Project, or Madhya Pradesh Water Supply Project.

Generally, while the employer controls the design, this procurement modality may limit innovation and increase project life cycle cost, as there are limited incentives to reduce capital costs or operating costs. For instance, if the cost of the chemicals and energy are not the ones planned, the employer will bear it. There are limited incentives for designers to ease the operations phase or to limit maintenance and asset replacement that will usually appear a few years after the operation starts. Also, in the case of non-performance of the infrastructure, the parties may blame each-others without easy solutions, and it may increase costs and time. If the public utility does not have the capacity to operate the infrastructure, this procurement mechanism is including a limited knowledge transfer to develop its operating staff, for instance, to operate a water or wastewater treatment plants using more complex technology.

In design and build contracts, the design and the construction phases are handled by the same contractor, and the operations and maintenance is done by the operating public utility. The selection process is simplified and the responsibility is concentrated on the same company undertaking the design and construction responsibilities.

The design-build construction company will have incentives to use innovative design, to achieve lower construction costs and faster delivery as they handle both. On the other hand, the employer may lose some control over the design process, and the cost incentives may negatively impact infrastructure quality. This form of contract may reduce competition as there are less number of eligible companies combining capacity to lead both phases. Also, there is still potential for conflicts with the operating utility. The capacity-building mechanism of the utility is limited and the operating phase may start late, or improperly as unskilled staff will impact the efficiency and durability of a water or wastewater treatment plant.

Recently, pure design-build-operate (DBO) contracts have been used for implementing infrastructure projects while improving resilience: employer defines outputs specifications related to what the infrastructure is supposed to deliver to people, as stable and high-level quality of water and wastewater.

DBO contracts request for design and works to be associated with defined operation and maintenance targets in their contracts, including energy, water efficiency, or wastewater quality targets to which payments to contractors are linked. If the targets are not met, contractors will have less revenue during the operating phase, which is a good incentive for them to deliver a high-quality infrastructure during the design phase. The contractor may submit innovative technology, as a bidder is selected based on the lowest life cycle cost, including the operating costs as energy, chemicals, and capital costs as assets replacement. The contractor is directly interested in infrastructure resilience as it needs to last for ten years or more. For instance, DBO modality was used in the Sri Lanka Desalination project and the Dhaka Wasa Water treatment plant and is now being adopted in Kiribas to develop a new desalination plant.

DBO requires a strong control from operating utility on the contractor to perform as planned, and has a more complex contract management phase as it is on a longer period with different and variable parameters. The employer needs also to secure the necessary funding to cover contractor operating fees on the period. The operating utility should be involved and interested in the performance of the infrastructure. Experienced operators should be in charge of the preparation of bidding documents to prepare realistic and achievable targets, on which contractor can act. Other forms of contracts to introduce operations and maintenance phases may be developed in the near future, especially to promote further innovations from the private sector to better manage assets and investments.

Introducing Technology and Innovations in Infrastructures Projects

Innovation hubs are now at the centre of attention of development institutions to attract the best ideas available on the market to be used in development projects. These innovations include climate-resilient and low carbon technologies to be used in building infrastructure facilities.

Climate-resilient and low carbon technologies may be using big data and smart systems to better manage water resources with higher accuracy and reliability. They range from traditional SCADA to more sophisticated smart systems using big data collected from many sensors and machine learning algorithms to efficiently manage networks and plants. Smart systems help improve asset performance by integrating geographic information and mapping systems with asset and customer management systems, including smart water meters to provide valuable data about the amount of water supplied to and used by customers.

In Dhaka, ADB has supported water network monitoring using SCADA, which allowed better control and improved water efficiency in district metering areas (DMAs) and reduced NRW. In the People’s Republic of China, ADB is financing the Jilin Yanji Low Carbon Climate Resilient Healthy City Project, which will include smart water meters. Consumption patterns of households will be analyzed to detect abnormal patterns of water consumption that may be related to personal emergencies like illness or accidents and will send an alert to the water utility. In line with this, recent results on COVID-19 analysis on wastewater samples have shown an interest in the use of wastewater systems as community health monitoring systems, since the tracing of the virus has been demonstrated to be useful to understand epidemic evolution and as an early warning system.

Climate-resilient and low carbon technologies can also be included in green and climate-resilient infrastructure involving nature-based design, to ensure the sustainability of infrastructure due to its better alignment with future climate events and greater use of greener materials reducing the impact of extreme water events, such as floods and typhoons. The Jilin Yanji Low Carbon Climate Resilient Healthy City Project includes climate-resilient flood risk management and sponge city green infrastructure – in residential areas within the catchment. Water quality will be improved through the construction of sedimentation tanks and sand filters at the end of drainage pipes, and ecological river rehabilitation.

In cities, recent epidemic events have also raised further the interest of making the city environment, the city assets, and the people connected. More sustainable infrastructures will be enhanced with the use of big data coming from sensors (e.g., pressure, flow, pH, chlorine, etc.) and the outputs derived from such data: better network efficiency, better water quality from plant to customers, and more focused investments using artificial intelligence to identify priority areas to rehabilitate in water networks, real-time follow up of energy consumption.

But using and benefiting from these data systems is not possible without a well-prepared procurement phase, and well-designed operation and maintenance requirements.

We must learn from the past and from the water and wastewater infrastructure operators: as schematized in Chart below, a resilient infrastructure should include from the start the requirements of the people operating it, including the most adapted and climate-friendly technologies, so efficient services can be delivered to end-users. Improving the resilience of water and wastewater infrastructure is also key to attract financing and trust in a sector that has to some extent a poor reputation due to its limited efficiency and financial sustainability.

Chart: Proposed approach to develop a resilient water and waste water infrastructure in Asia and the Pacific

ADB STANDARD DISCLAIMERS:

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent.

ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of its use. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by ADB in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned.

By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term “country” in this document, ADB does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or another status of any territory or area.

Author Details: –

Stephane Bessadi strategically supports infrastructure projects design and procurement in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, focusing on resilience, operations, and maintenance and low carbon technologies as a part of ADB’s Procurement, Portfolio, and Financial Management Department (PPFD). Stéphane also leads to innovative water and wastewater practices and technologies from the water service industry. Stéphane holds Masters Degree in Water Management from AgroParisTech and Engineer Economist Degree from Magistère Ingénieur Economiste of Aix Marseille II University, both in France, and a Bachelor Degree in Economics from McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

 

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