A CASE STUDY ON “GEOMEMBRANES – A PERFECT CHOICE FOR FARM POND LINING

AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECTOR

Anand ZambreVice President – Agribusiness

ESSEN Multipack Ltd, Rajkot, Gujaratvpa@essenpoly.com, +91-9909993474

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ESSEN MULTIPACK LTD.• Aim:

To fulfill the customer requirement of specialty application films & sheet with best quality at affordable price.

• Company type: A family owned business with professional setup.

• History: Started polymer processing by name of M/s. Essen Polymers Pvt. Ltd. in 1988 in a remote village – Manavadar, 300 kms west of Ahmedabad and shifted the operations to Rajkot, the commercial hub of Saurashtra - West Gujarat, in 1994. It was than M/s. Essen Multipack Ltd., was incorporated. Later in 2003 Essen Polymers was also shifted to Rajkot

• Strength: 25 years of experience in polymer processing, with strong goodwill for various blown extruded plastic films.

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LOCATION:

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A Glimpse at our Facility:

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Few Landmarks:

• 1st in world to produce FOAM films

• 1st to produce Stretch films by Blown extrusion process

• 1st to produce 3 layer and 5 layer Greenhouse films in India

• 1st to produce Mulch films in India

• 1st to produce Mulch films with ready holes in India

• 1st to produce Embossed Mulch films India• 1st to produce 5 layer Greenhouse films in Asia• ONLY polymer processor in WORLD for in-house capacity to

produce films with thickness7 to 1500 micron & width 10” to 10 mtr

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Infrastructure:

• State-of-art blown film line in Co-ext., Mono-ext., Cast ext. with

accumulated production capacity of 50MT/Day (15k/MTPA)

• Adapted ISO9001:2008 management system

• Well experienced team of polymer experts & dedicated task force of

skilled & unskilled workers

• In-house ultra modern testing facility

• Most sophisticated material handling equipments

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Products

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Products

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Blown & Cast extrusion films & sheets

Printing applications

PE Foam FilmESSTRON Sheets

Packaging applicationsShrink filmPallet hooding film

Liquid Packaging filmLamination filmVCI films / bagsContainer Liners

Agriculture applicationsGreenhouse covering sheetsGreenhouse drainage sheets

Trough sheetsSoil Solarization film

Mulch filmGoe Membrane FilmPond /Canal Liners

Specialty developments

As per customer requirementMatch target as per sample or application

Abstract• In last one decade, the Indian farmers are attracted towards using

Geomembranes for storing the water in rain water harvesting structures commonly known as farm ponds. Traditionally, farm ponds were constructed using cement concrete infrastructure but not very adaptive by farmers because of very high input costs.

• Introduction of Geomembranes as a material for lining in farm ponds replacing cement concrete was a tremendous success and the farmers in India especially of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka widely adopted the Geomembrane concept for their rain water harvesting structures/farm ponds.

• Additional advantages like life and stability of Geomembranes, easy availability and 100% leak proof structures also helped the farmers to adopt Geomembranes for their farm ponds.

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Abstract• This case study presents the advantages of Geomembranes as farm pond

liners as well as in infrastructure sector and also how use of geomembranes changed the life style of farmers and their farm economics. The case study is based on the farmers in Maharashtra located in various districts.

• Most of the farmers surveyed for this study were initially grain and vegetable growers but after having farm ponds with Geomembranes converted their cropping pattern to fruit crops like grapes, pomegranates, mangoes and protected cultivation like greenhouses. The results obtained from the case study are very impressive showing the importance of use of Geomembranes in farm ponds other than traditional methods in the annual returns of the farmers.

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GEOMEMBERANE

A Geo membrane is very low permeability synthetic membrane liner or barrier used with any geotechnical engineering related material so as to control fluid (or gas) migration in a human-made project, structure, or system. Geo membranes are made from relatively thin continuous polymeric sheets, but they can also be made from the impregnation of geo textiles with asphalt elastomeric polymer sprays, or as multilayered bitumen geo composites. Continuous polymer sheet geo membranes are, by far, the most common.

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PROPERTIES

The majority of generic Geo membrane test methods that are referenced worldwide are by the ASTM International American Society of Testing and Materials ASTM due to their long history in this activity. More recent are test method developed by the International Organization for Standardization ISO. Lastly, the Geo synthetic Research Institute GRI has developed test methods that are only for test methods not addressed by ASTM or ISO. Of course, individual countries and manufacturers often have specific (and sometimes) proprietary test methods.

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Physical Properties as per ASTM

• Thickness as per ASTM D5199 -12• Density as per ASTM D 1505 -10• Carbon Black Content as per ASTM D1603 -12• Carbon Black Dispersion as per ASTM D5596 -03• Melt Flow Index as per ASTM D1238 -10• Dimension Stability as per ASTM D1204-08

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Mechanical Properties as per ASTM

• Tensile strength and Elongation as per ASTM D6693-04• Tear Resistance as per ASTM D1004-09• Puncture resistance as per ASTM D4833-07• Oxidative Induction Time (OIT) as per ASTM D3895-07

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STANDARDS

• The HDPE Geomemberane manufactured by ESSEN Multipack Ltd follows the ASTM standards and GRI 13 Standard. The method of testing is as per GRI 13 as well as IS standard.

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Endurance Properties

• Ultraviolet light transmission• Radioactive degradation• Biological degradation• Chemical degradation• Thermal behavior• Oxidative degradation

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Applications

• As liners for potable water• As liners for reserve water (e.g., safe shutdown of nuclear facilities)• As liners for Solid waste land fills(e.g., sewage sludge)• Liners for radioactive or hazardous waste land fills• As liners for secondary containment of underground storage tanks• As liners for Oil refinery ponds• As liners for construction solutions• As liners for the agriculture industry

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Continued…

• As liners for the aquiculture industry• As liners for golf course water holes and sand bunkers• As liners for all types of decorative and architectural ponds• As liners for water conveyance canals• As liners for various waste conveyance canals• As liners for primary, secondary, and/or tertiary solid-waste landfills

and waste piles• As liners for heap leach pads• As covers (caps) for solid-waste landfills• As covers for aerobic and anaerobic manure digesters in the

agriculture industry

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Continued…

• As covers for power plant coal ash• As liners for vertical walls: single or double with leak detection• As cutoffs within zoned earth dams for seepage control• As linings for emergency spillways• As waterproofing liners within tunnels and pipelines• As waterproof facing of earth and rock fill dams• As waterproof facing for roller compacted concrete dams• As waterproof facing for masonry and concrete dams• Within cofferdams for seepage control• As floating reservoirs for seepage control

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Test Particulars Unit Nominal Values

Thickness µ 500 750 1000 1500

Tolerance on thickness % ±5% point to point; 10% overall

Density gm/cc@27°C 0.94 0.94 0.94 0.94

Melt Flow Index gm/10 min 0.3-0.1 0.3-0.1 0.3-0.1 0.3-0.1

Carbon Black Content % 2.7 2.7 2.7 2.7

Carbon Dispersion Visual Satisfy

Tensile Strength at Break, (both directions) kg/cm2 ≥190 ≥200 ≥210 ≥240

Elongation at Break, (both directions) % ≥700 ≥800 ≥800 ≥800

Tear Resistance (Elmendorf), (both directions) mn/µ 60 80 90 130

High Impact Resistance (Pass) gm ≥850 ≥850 ≥850 ≥850

Life Expectancy (U.V. Stability)@180 kly solar exposure Years 5 8 10 15

Technical Data Sheet (TDS)

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Availability of Geomembranes in Indian markets

• The Geomembranes in India are available in thickness varying from 250 micron to 1500 micron, in widths from 5m to 10 m in role form with lengths as per requirement or standard lengths of roles varying from 50 m to 100m. The Geomembranes are also available in monolayer and multilayer but as everyone knows, Multilayered Geomembranes perform much better as compared to monolayer geomembranes.

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Materials and Methods

• The farmers for this survey were selected randomly from different districts of Western Maharashtra to study the change in cropping pattern and overall economics of the farmers before and after the construction of farm pond with geomembranes. The details of the farmers selected are as follows –

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Sr No Name of the farmer Location Cultivable area of land in Acres

Date/month of completion of pond

Volume of stored water in Lit

01 Nitin Patil Jalgaon 20 Acres 04-2012 1.50 crore

02 Prakash Pawar Aurangabad 18 Acres 11-2011 1.00 crore

03 Ravindra Chaudhar Ahmednagar 50 Acres 04 - 2013 15.00 crore

04 Ramchandra Save Thane 30 Acres 02-2013 25 Lacs

05 Mahyco seeds Jalna 30 Acres 06-2012 2.00 crore

06 Subodh Bhingarde Ratnagiri 35 Acres 02-2012 35 Lacs

07 Pratap Jadhav Jalgaon 30 Acres 04-2012 1.50 crore

08 Pathan Aurangabad 50 Acres 01-2013 40 Lacs

09 Uttam Shende Pune 5 Acres 01-2012 30 Lacs

10 Sanjay Sanap Nasik 20 Acres 01-2012 90 Lacs

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Costs incurred for construction of farm pond including digging and laying of Geomembranes Sr No Name of the farmer Size of farm pond Cost of construction in Rs.

01 Nitin Patil 85mtr X54mtr 7 Lacs

02 Prakash Pawar 40mtr X40mtr X11mtr 5 Lacs

03 Ravindra Chaudhar 140mtr X90mtr X23mtr 45 Lacs

04 Ramchandra Save 35mtr X35mtr 3 Lacs

05 Mahyco seeds 50mtr X82mtr 8 Lacs

06 Subodh Bhingarde 22mtr X 34mtr 2 Lacs

07 Pratap Jadhav 66mtr X 64mtr 7 Lacs

08 Pathan 58mtr X 52mtr 4 Lacs

09 Uttam Shende 46mtr X33mtr 3 Lacs

10 Sanjay Sanap 50mtr X60mtr 8 Lacs

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Observation

• It was observed during the survey that before construction of farm pond, the farmers use to depend only on rain water for irrigation to crops and hence were not able to cultivate the crops in winter (Rabbi Season) and summers. After storing the water in farm ponds, the farmers are now able to cultivate various crops round the year thus increase in production and returns

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Results and conclusions

• It was concluded that the farm ponds using Geomembranes are much cheaper as compared to cement concrete structures. Following table shows the comparison on costs with cement concrete structures and farm pond structures with Geomembranes.

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Sr No Name of the farmer Size of pond Cost of farm pond with geomembranes

Approximate cost of cement concrete structure in Rs.

01 Nitin Patil 85mtr X54mtr 7 Lacs 3.00 crore

02 Prakash Pawar 40mtr X40mtr X11mtr 5 Lacs 2.00 crore

03 Ravindra Chaudhar 140mtr X90mtr X23mtr

45 Lacs 30.00 crore

04 Ramchandra Save 35mtr X35mtr 3 Lacs 50 Lacs

05 Mahyco seeds 50mtr X82mtr 8 Lacs 4.00 crores

06 Subodh Bhingarde 22mtr X 34mtr 2 Lacs 70.00 Lacs

07 Pratap Jadhav 66mtr X 64mtr 7 Lacs 3.00 crore

08 Pathan 58mtr X 52mtr 4 Lacs 80 Lacs

09 Uttam Shende 46mtr X33mtr 3 Lacs 60 Lacs

10 Sanjay Sanap 50mtr X60mtr 8 Lacs 1.80 crore

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It was also concluded that the yearly farm income of the farmers increased 1.5 to 2 times after the construction of farm ponds with geomembranes. Following table shows the growth in income of the selected individual farmers after the farm pond is constructed

Sr No Name of the farmer Approx Yearly Income in Rs. Before construction of pond

Approx Yearly Income in Rs. after construction of pond

01 Nitin Patil 16.00 Lacs 30 Lacs

02 Prakash Pawar 7 Lacs 10 Lacs

03 Ravindra Chaudhar 32 Lacs 50 Lacs

04 Ramchandra Save 70 Lacs 1Crore

05 Mahyco seeds ----- -----

06 Subodh Bhingarde 17 Lacs 30 Lacs

07 Pratap Jadhav 20 Lacs 30 Lacs

08 Pathan 25 Lacs 35 Lacs

09 Uttam Shende 5 Lacs 8 Lacs

10 Sanjay Sanap 18 Lacs 30 Lacs

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Conclusion

• Thus it is concluded that use of Geomembranes as farm pond liner is very cheap and economical viable option for the farmers in India to improve their life style and returns. It is therefore recommended for all the farmers in India to use Geomembranes as pond liners for rain water harvesting structures.

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Geomembranes in Infrastructure sector

• The Geomembranes are not only used in lining but are also widely accepted for various applications in Civil structures like roads, buildings, solid waste management, mining, railways, airports etc. Following are some images where geomembranes are used as leak proof materials in various infrastructures.

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Frac Tank Liners

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THANK YOU !!

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Anand ZambreVice President – Agribusiness

ESSEN Multipack Ltd, Rajkot, Gujaratvpa@essenpoly.com, +91-9909993474