ICAER 2015: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ADVANCES IN ENERGY RESEARCH
PROGRAM FOR TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15TH
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07:30-09:00Breakfast
09:00-09:30 Session Inaugural
Chair:
Sagar Mitra (IITBombay, India)
Location: Main Auditorium
09:30-10:30 Session Plenary 1
Location: Main Auditorium
09:30
Mark Wrighton (WUStL, USA)
Role of Science and Technology in Meeting Global Energy Needs
10:30-11:00High Tea
11:00-13:00 Session Solar PV Systems
Chair:
K L Narasimhan (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Location: VMCC 33
11:00
Shivendra Kaundilya (pondicherry university, India)
Birinchi Bora (nise, India)
O.S.Sastry Sastry (nise, India)
Supriya Rai (nise, India)
Manander Bangar (nise, India)
Kamlesh Yadav (NISE, India)
Rashmi Singh (NISE, India)
Renu Dahiya (NISE, India)
Avinash Kumar (Tezpur University, India)
Mithlesh Kumar (NISE, India)
R. Arun Prasath (pondicherry university, India)
Analysis of soiling effect on thin-film and crystalline technology PV modules for composite climate zone of India

ABSTRACT. Effect of soiling on thin film and crystalline technology has been studied for composite climate from two months data. Three test setup structures with dual axis manual tracking have been installed at outdoors for exposure of modules at different tilt angles 130, 280& 430. In the same structure with different inclination clean and dust module of each technology is installed to study the effect of the effect of variation in current , spectrum and temperature. The natural cleaning of non-dusty modules is done on daily basis in the early morning. The short circuit current of all modules are measured through a programmable digital multi-meter on continuous basis. There is drop in Isc current for the dust module with the increase of dust accumulation. A change in spectrum is also observed for each day and drop in average photon energy was observed due to change in transmissivity.

11:15
Rahul Rawat (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India)
S. C. Kaushik (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India)
O. S. Sastry (National Institute of Solar Energy, India)
Birinchi Bora (National Institute of Solar Energy, India)
Y. K. Singh (National Institute of Solar Energy, India)
Long-term Performance Analysis of CdTe PV module in real operating conditions

ABSTRACT. Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology has gained ample attention with the continuously increasing electricity demand and climate concerns. The Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) based PV technology is the leading and foremost technology among rapidly growing thin film PV industry because of its lower energy and economic payback period and energy efficiency competitive to the wafer based technology. Although, these modules undergo a series of indoor qualification tests specified by IEC61646, the long-term performance analysis in real operation conditions is essential in order to ensure long term stability, robustness and reliability. In this paper, performance analysis of 80WP CdTe PV module has been carried out on the basis of long term time series data of short circuit current (ISC) and open circuit voltage (VOC) measured in outdoor conditions. The measured electrical parameters has been translated to alternate reporting conditions i.e. 800W/m2 irradiance over the module surface and 40°C module temperature. The monthly averaged and normalized VOC and ISC of the module is found to be degraded by 2.86% and 2.29% after 23 months of outdoor exposure. The parameters are translated to standard test conditions for diurnal analysis which shows the degradation of 2.91% for VOC while no deviation in the value of ISC.

11:30
Chandra Bhal Singh (School of Materials Science and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi-221005, India, India)
Sekhar Bhattacharya (SSN Research Centre, SSN Nagar, Kalavakkam-603110, TN, India)
Surajit Sarkar (Deportment of Physics, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur-208016, UP, India, India)
Vandana Singh (Samtel Centre for Display Technology, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur-208016, UP, India, India)
Akhilesh Kumar Singh (School of Materials Science and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi-221005, India, India)
Development of Textured Electrode, Index Matching Layer and Nanostructured Materials for Light Trapping inside Photovoltaic devices

ABSTRACT. In order to reduce the energy harvesting cost, numerous efforts have been made to replace crystalline silicon solar cells with thin film based solar cells. The device efficiency of thin film photo-voltaic devices needs to be improved. Currently, surface texturing based light trapping technologies have been used to improve the device efficiency of photo-voltaic devices. In this paper, we demonstrate experimentally that surface textured hydrogenated ZnO:Al films as transparent conducting oxide (TCO) electrode and nanostructured materials in solar cells improve the anti-reflection properties of TCO coated glass substrate. These surfaces scatter the incident light inside the active layer of solar cells. Scattering of light on textured and nanostructured surface causes increase in average light path length inside active layer which results in increased absorption coefficient. Amorphous silicon solar cells fabricated on textured TCO layer show increase in device efficiency. Silicon nitride film was used as index matching layer between glass and TCO and increase in transmittance was observed. Silicon nanowires were grown using PECVD for their application in solar cells. Metal ( In) nanoparticles were used for plasmonic light trapping inside solar cells. It was observed that textured TCO, index matching layer and plasmonic nanoparticles techniques improve the device efficiency while nanowires based devices need more optimization to get higher efficiency.

11:45
Birinchi Bora (National Institute of Solar energy, India)
O.S. Sastry (National Institute of Solar Energy, India)
Rashmi Singh (davv, India)
Manandar Bangar (NISE, India)
Supriya Rai (NISE, India)
Renu Dahiya (NISE, India)
Bapi Kumar Das (Central University of Jharkhand, India)
Farazuddin Azalan (Central University of Jharkhand, India)
Pranav Anand (Central University of Jharkhand, India)
Ratan Kuber (Central University of Jharkhand, India)
Vivek Krishnan (Central University of Jharkhand, India)
Yogesh Kumar Singh (National Institute of solar Energy, India)
Ramayan Singh (National Institute of solar Energy, India)
Series Resistance measurement of Solar PV Modules using Mesh in Real Outdoor condition

ABSTRACT. This work presents an analysis of three different methods to determine the series resistance Rs of different technologies and to find the most reliable method under real operating conditions. The methods under consideration are: Single slope method, one curve illumination method and Mesh analysis. The interpretation of Series resistance is done for 18 different Solar PV modules. The series resistance measurement using mesh analysis is the most reliable and robust way to determine the series resistance in real field operating conditions.

12:00
Rashmi Singh (NISE, India)
Birinchi Bora (NISE, India)
O.S Sastry (NISE, India)
Kamlesh Yadav (NISE, India)
Renu Dahiya (NISE, India)
Manandar Bangar (NISE, India)
Supriya Rai (NISE, India)
Yogesh Kumar Singh (national institute of solar energy, India)
Ramayan Singh (national institute of solar energy, India)
Avinash Kumar (Tezpur University, India)
Estimation of Dynamic resistance of HIT technology module in dark and illuminated condition

ABSTRACT. Dynamic resistance of solar cell and module has been determined from a dark IV characteristic. It is often assumed that series resistance Rs is small and the shunt resistance Rsh very large, their effect can be neglected. Dynamic resistance is normally calculated as the slope of the IV characteristic. Focusing on the resistance effect of the solar cells, we propose a new and simple method to directly determine the dynamic resistance of the PV modules. In this experiment, we measure illuminated and dark characteristics of a 210 Wp HIT module at 22-25 0C. In our method, we develop the ability to determine the dynamic resistance with a combination of finite series- and shunt-connected resistance. Comparison is also made on the series resistance Rs and shunt resistance determined from the single and double IV curve.

12:15
Avinash Kumar (Tezpur University, India)
Birinchi Bora (National Institute of Solar Energy, India)
Manandar Bangar (NISE, India)
Supriya Rai (NISE, India)
Rashmi Singh (NISE, India)
Renu Dahiya (NISE, India)
Sadhan Mahapatra (Tezpur University, India)
O.S. Sastry (NISE, India)
Power Rating of Six Different Photovoltaic Technology Modules as Per IEC 61853-1 Under real outdoor condition

ABSTRACT. The long term outdoor performances of six different PV technologies CdTe, CIGS, Micro-morph, amorphous silicon, HIT and multi crystalline silicon modules under natural sunlight (outdoor conditions) has also been studied. A temperature and irradiance matrix of power and efficiency for these PV technologies as per IEC 61853 Part 1 are presented. The performances of six PV technologies modules under different out/indoor test conditions are analyzed. The paper also presents the efficiency of these technologies at different conditions and operating efficiency with respect to name plate value.

12:30
Avra Kundu (IIEST,Shibpur, India)
Arijit Bardhan Roy (IIEST,Shibpur, India)
Arup Dhar (IIEST,Shibpur, India)
Mrinmoyee Choudhuri (DSCSDEC ( WBUT ), India)
Silicon Micro-Nanopillars as Solar Tracker for Photovoltaic Application

ABSTRACT. Silicon micro-nanopillars are fascinating structures which can increase the light trapping phenomenon in solar photovoltaic applications. In this work focus is kept on reducing the reflection for wider ranges of incidence angle. By implementing this wide angle light collection phenomenon the conventional solar tracking system can be replaced which is currently being used to enhance the overall efficiency of the solar photovoltaic system, as the efficiency of solar photovoltaic system is maximum when the sunrays fall perpendicular to the solar module. Further as the solar tracker is having rotating parts it needs regular maintenance which makes them expensive and even prone to hazardous weather conditions. If a similar performance as that of a solar tracker system can be achieved without using conventional mechanical tracking system then cost per watt can be significantly reduced. Here we demonstrate that by using silicon micro-nanopillars we can achieve similar performance as that of solar tracker by reducing the reflection at wide variations of incidence angle. Simulations have been carried out to optimize the geometry in COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS, where TE (Transverse Electric) and TM (Transverse Magnetic) polarized light are made incident over the geometry and reflection is observed at different angle of incidence. A simple technique of using silica nano particles as the masking layer in the Au assisted chemical etching process has been proposed for fabrication of silicon micro-nanopillars. A reduced reflection of ~2% over a spectral range of 300-1100 nm is obtained by the micro-nanopillars over silicon substrate.

12:45
Shajith Ali (SSN College of Engineering, Anna University Chennai, India)
Fuzzy Logic Control of Z-source DC-DC Converter for Photovoltaic Systems

ABSTRACT. Z-source converters are the recently premised DC-DC converters which perform buck and boost operations, provide larger range of output DC voltage, improve reliability and can reduce in-rush and ripple currents. In photovoltaic (PV) applications, they provide better outcomes compared to conventional DC-DC converters. These converters can be used as power conditioning units, so that the voltage boost and reception of maximum power from the PV array can be achieved. The maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is obtained by controlling the duty cycle. A fuzzy logic control based MPPT is developed in this work to track the maximum power point of the PV array under variable solar irradiance and temperature conditions. Computer simulation and experimental results are provided to establish the developed system.

11:00-13:00 Session Semiconductors
Chair:
Guy Ankonina (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel)
Location: VMCC 12
11:00
Rasit Turan (Middle East Technical University, Turkey)
Structuring the Surface of Thin Si Solar Cell for Efficient Light Trapping

ABSTRACT. Photovoltaic solar cell conversion technologies are attracting increasingly higher attention due to recent developments in reducing their cost and improved conversion performance. In particular, crystalline Silicon (Si) cell technology has reached an extremely well maturity level with well-optimized material and process conditions. However, for an ultimate victory of solar energy over other energy resources, further improvements in the cell efficiency and the cost are needed. Such developments should be based on new approaches employing new material and device structures. Among such efforts, use of thinner wafers are attracting special attention for a potentially significant reduction in the material cost. However, for thin Si wafer (<100 micron), significant part of the incoming light is transmitted trough cell without being absorbed. For this reason, light management becomes crucially important in the utilization of the incoming light effectively. Light trapping techniques aims at increasing the path length in the active region of the solar cell through scattering of the incident photons by textured surface, thereby increasing the light absorption. Both reflection and transmission through the cell are significantly reduced in this way. Traditionally, surface texturing and anti reflection coatings have been commonly used for this purpose. Alternatively, surface nanostructures are being extensively studied for light trapping applications in crystalline solar cell systems.

Micro- and nano-structures including well aligned nanowires can be formed by a technique based on Metal assisted Etching (MAE) which is a solution based electrochemical etching process taken place on Si surface. The structural properties of the surface can be tailored using appropriate chemical solutions and process parameters. In this work, we have employed MAE technique to fabricate various surface structures and shown that they can provide effective light trapping properties. We have also fabricated solar cells with thick and thin wafers showing the effectiveness of the MAE for surface texturing even for industrial size solar cells. It has then become clear that MAE technique is suitable and promising technique for surface structuring at industrial scale.

11:30
Anurag Sahu (IIT Jodhpur, India)
Ajoy K. Saha (IIT Jodhpur, India)
Kiran R. Hiremath (IIT Jodhpur, India)
Ambesh Dixit (IIT Jodhpur, India)
CdTe sensitized nano porous electrodes for photovoltaic application

ABSTRACT. CdTe quantum dots were synthesized using water as a solvent medium. Synthesized quantum dots were used to integrate into TiO2 nano-porous electrode using a combination of linker assisted direct adsorption and chemical bath deposition scheme. Sensitized electrode was characterized to understand their physical and optical properties for photovoltaic application.

11:45
Avra Kundu (IIEST,Shibpur, India)
Arijit Bardhan Roy (IIEST,Shibpur, India)
Arup Dhar (IIEST SHIBPUR, India)
Mrinmoyee Choudhuri (DSCSDEC ( WBUT ), India)
Metamaterial Mirror as Back Reflector for Thin Silicon Solar Cell Application

ABSTRACT. Metamaterial mirrors as back reflector is an innovative design for light trapping phenomenon in silicon solar cells. An optimized design for achieving maximum reflection in such metamaterial mirror is presented in this paper. In conventional metallic mirrors when light is reflected a phase reversal occurs and thus the intensity is reduced at the reflective surface. This effect is highly undesirable in thin solar cell applications where metal is used both as an electrical contact and an optical mirror. A mirror whose reflection phase can be varied from that of a perfect electric mirror to that of a perfect magnetic mirror can be used to overcome this challenge in thin silicon solar cells. In a magnetic mirror no phase reversal of the incident electromagnetic wave occur resulting maximum field enhancement at the mirror surface. Such magnetic mirrors are classified as metamaterial mirrors. Simulations have been done with Comsol Multiphysics to obtain electric field and reflection for both TE (Transverse Electric) and TM (Transverse Magnetic) polarized light at various groove depth to obtain the optimized geometry. The enhancement in the electric field is significantly increased which will lead to a enhanced absorption in the solar absorber resulting in high efficiencies.

12:00
Prashant Singh (CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi-110012, India)
Sanjay K. Srivastava (CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi-110012, India)
Vijay Prajapati (CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi-110012, India)
Sivaiah Bathula (CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi-110012, India)
C.M.S. Rauthan (CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi-110012, India)
P.K. Singh (CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi-110012, India)
Low Reflecting Hierarchically Textured Silicon by Silver Assisted Chemical Etching for Potential Solar Cell Application

ABSTRACT. In recent past, nanowires have been blended with micro-textured Si substrate to achieve ultra-low reflecting architecture. It has been able to reduce reflectivity of silicon from ~35% to 2-3% without any anti-reflective coating. It has potential application in phtovoltaics. This study reports fabrication of such hybrid structure via electroless metal assisted wet chemical etching on Si (100) employing aqueous solution of hydrofluoric acid and silver nitrate. Further, concentration of hydrofluoric acid has been varied to study its effect on the formation kinetics of nanowires over micro-textured substrate. Investigation reveals determining influence of hydrofluoric acid concentration over formation and alignment of nanowire in the hybrid structure. Insights obtained from this study would be helpful in fabricating ultra-low reflecting hybrid architecture for efficient harvesting of solar energy through an economical, simple and scalable route for photovoltaic and other opto-electronic devices.

11:00-13:00 Session CES 1
Chair:
J K Nayak (IIT Bombay, India)
Location: VMCC 32
11:00
Neeraj Sharma (UNSW, Australia)
Electrochemistry and crystallography: A beautiful marriage

ABSTRACT. Electrochemical energy storage devices in the form of batteries are ubiquitous in society, providing portable power solutions. A large proportion of the function of batteries arises from the electrodes, and these are in turn mediated by the atomic-scale perturbations or changes in the crystal structure during an electrochemical process (e.g. battery use). Therefore, a method to both understand battery function and improve their performance to meet emerging applications is to probe the crystal structure evolution in situ while an electrochemical process is occurring inside a battery.

Our work has utilized the benefits of in situ neutron diffraction (e.g. sensitivity towards lithium) to literally track the time-resolved evolution of lithium in cathode materials used in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (see Figure 1). With this knowledge we have been able to directly relate electrochemical properties such as capacity and differences in charge/discharge to the content and distribution of lithium in the cathode crystal structure. In addition, the ability to test smaller samples (e.g. in coin cells) with in situ X-ray diffraction has allowed us to probe other batteries types, such as primary lithium and ambient temperature rechargeable sodium-ion batteries. 

11:30
Nilesh Purohit (BITS PILANI, India)
Dileep Kumar Gupta (IITRAM, India)
Mani Sankar Dasgupta (BITS PILANI, India)
Effect of inter-stage pressure on the performance of a two stage refrigeration cycle using inter cooler.

ABSTRACT. Effect of inter-stage pressure on the performance of a two stage refrigeration cycle using inter cooler is studied based on thermodynamic modelling. Six common refrigerants are selected for the analyses. These are R134a, R22 and R143a as synthetic refrigerants and propane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide as natural refrigerants. The designed input range is -50oC to -30oC for evaporator temperature and 40oC to 60oC for heat rejection temperature. Three classical relations for estimating inter-stage pressure in a two stage refrigeration system are selected and the performance is evaluated against optimized inter-stage pressure corresponding to the best COP. Results show that for trans-critical cycles, the deviation of optimized inter-stage pressure with the classical ones is considerable, while for sub-critical cycles, COP is very less sensitive to inter-stage pressure. Further, comprehensive analysis of CO2 based trans-critical refrigeration system is presented for a wider range covering -50oC to 10oC evaporation temperature and 35oC to 60oC gas cooler outlet temperature. A correlation for estimating optimum inter-stage and gas cooler pressure for the same is also formulated. With gradual increase in focus towards adoption of natural refrigerants like CO2, the effect of inter stage pressure is expected to be an important consideration in warmer climatic condition.

11:45
C. Chiranjeevi (Vellore Institute of Technology, India)
T. Srinivas (Vellore Institute of Technology, India)
Experimental studies on a combined two stage desalination and cooling plant

ABSTRACT. This work evaluates a two-stage humidification-dehumidification (HDH) process for combined air cooling and desalination for fresh water production from salt water experimentally. A pilot scale plant is designed and constructed with 16 m2 solar collector area for salt water heating. The effect of main parameters on fresh water generation and cooling effect is studied in the light of hot water inlet temperature and its flow rate. The component’s temperature rise or drop is plotted to identify the performance variations with the role of hot water inlet temperature to humidifier, its mass flow rate. It is observed that a maximum of 3.5 litres/hr of fresh water is produced at a water and air flow rates of 200 litres/hr and 16 m3/hr respectively. An average temperature drop of 10 °C is observed from the ambient condition to generate the cooling effect for air conditioning application. It also observed that a maximum 12 °C and a minimum of 7.5°C temperature drop (cooling effect) for water flow rates of 100 litres/hr and 200 litre/hr respectively. On overall basis, maximum possible water flow rate in humidifier and also high temperature are recommended to yield more desalination output.

12:00
Sumit Agarwal (IIT Guwahati, India)
Niranjan Sahoo (IIT Guwahati, India)
Coaxial Surface Junction Thermocouple for Transient Measurements in the Combustion Chamber of an Internal Combustion Engine

ABSTRACT. The present study intends to measure the transient heat flux in the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine. The work focuses on the novel design methodology of the in-house fabricated heat sensors and thereafter its application in the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine. The main idea behind the development was to successfully test the fabricated coaxial surface junction thermocouple (CSJT) in the robust environment such as that of an internal combustion engine. For the proposed experiment Spark Ignition engine head was designed and fabricated in-house.

12:15
Parashuram R Chitragar (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
Shivaprasad K V (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
Vighnesha Nayak (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
Kumar G N (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
Parashuram Bedar (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
An Experimental Study on Combustion and Emission Analysis of Four Cylinder 4-Stroke Gasoline Engine Using Pure Hydrogen and LPG at Idle Condition.

ABSTRACT. Fluctuation in oil prices and stricter exhaust emission norms were the main reasons wakening every researcher to search for suitable and feasible alternative fuels for automotive use. Among the available option gaseous fuels find their best position because of their compatible physic-chemical properties than present fossil fuels. They also known for ecofriendly nature. Hydrogen’s combustion properties like high energy content, high heating value, wide range of flammability and low ignition energy with almost least toxic emissions are favorable to use in an IC engine as an alternative fuel. Liquid petroleum gas (LPG) has lower carbon content, higher calorific value, octane number and flame propagation speed will improve the emission results compared to gasoline fuel. This paper describes an experimental analysis carried out to evaluate the combustion and emission performance of a Maruti-Suzuki make, spark ignited four cylinder, four stroke engine at idle condition by using pure hydrogen, LPG and gasoline. For this the engine was adjoined with ECU assisted hydrogen and liquid petroleum gas injector system keeping gasoline fuel line unchanged. Tests were carried out by using compressed hydrogen gas regulated by two stage pressure reduction from cylinder to atmospheric value and by using vaporizer pressure for LPG. For comparison engine was run first by pure gasoline and then by pure hydrogen and LPG. Study revealed that there was increment of 13% cylinder pressure for pure hydrogen and decrement of 4.5% cylinder pressure for LPG when compared to gasoline was observed. Figure 1 indicates the pressure crank angle diagram for all the three fuels. It was also observed that peak pressure shifted towards TDC for pure hydrogen. There was insignificant gain was found for net heat release rate from either of fuels compared to gasoline. Figure 2 shows the net heat release for all fuels. The mass fraction and burn duration plot was shown in figure 3. The burn duration for pure hydrogen, LPG and Gasoline were found to be 7, 10 1nd 12 degree crank angle respectively which infers that hydrogen has very short combustion duration and gasoline has more in comparison with LPG fuel. It was observed that toxic emissions CO, HC and NOx were also improved for pure hydrogen than LPG and gasoline. CO emissions for pure hydrogen, LPG and gasoline were 0.01, 0.04 and 0.4 % by volume observed. NOx emission of 2.2, 22 and 36.5 ppm were recorded for pure hydrogen, LPG and gasoline respectively. However there was least value of HC of 9.5 ppm for pure hydrogen was observed against 63.5ppm and 104ppm of gasoline and LPG respectively. Figure 4 depicts the exhaust emissions for pure hydrogen, LPG and Gasoline fuel.

12:30
Sivakumar Subramanian (IIT MADRAS, India)
A. S. Sekhar (Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India)
Prasad Bvsss (IIT Madras, India)
Thermal influences on rotordynamic coefficients of a rotating gas turbine seal

ABSTRACT. The objective of the present work is to assess the influence of radial thermal growth on the rotordynamic coefficients for a typical rotating gas turbine seal. Towards this, a labyrinth seal clearance-leakage model based on combined 3D-FE/CFD methodology, along with an appropriate rotordynamics model have been employed to predict the rotordynamic coefficients of seal. A six-tooth straight-through labyrinth seal, having teeth-on-rotor is investigated for a wide-ranging pressure ratios and temperature conditions for a particular initial clearance and rotational speed. The computed rotordynamic coefficients are compared to the one without considering thermal growth (ambient condition), as a function of pressure ratio and temperature. The results show significant variation of the crucial seal coefficients and thereby highlight the importance of considering the seal thermal growth, while performing rotordynamic analysis of any practical rotor system of concern.

12:45
Pinkesh Shah (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Anuradda Ganesh (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
A Comparative Study on Influence of Edible and Non-Edible Vegetable Oil on Combustion Characteristics of Multi Cylinder CI Engine

ABSTRACT. The combustion of straight vegetable oil (SVO) in diesel engine has shown conflicting results in performance and engine longevity depending on the type of oil and engine. Some engine researchers reported direct use of vegetable oil either as edible oil or non-edible oil separately in diesel engine but none of research showed their use in the same engine under similar operating condition without any modifications. The purpose of the present work is to compare the behaviour of edible and non-edible crude vegetable oil on combustion characteristics of existing diesel engine under similar operating condition with cognitive elaboration. A comparative study using Sunflower oil as edible oil and Karanj oil as Non-edible oil was conducted on Cummins DXP 17.5 liter, 2-cylinder DI diesel Genset at constant speed by varying brake load and the results were compared with diesel fuel. The physical properties were also measured to calculate the Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) to correlate the comparison of atomization characteristics of both oils. The fatty acids typically present in the Karanj oil and Sunflower oil was determined by GC-MS spectra. Combustion analysis revealed that both edible oil (SF) and non-edible oil (KO) exhibited longer ignition delay, higher cylinder pressure and heat release rate (HRR) as compared to diesel fuel. However, SF oil showed little lower cylinder pressure and HRR in comparison to KO. In addition, the SMD of both edible and non-edible vegetable oils were found higher than that of diesel fuel due to having higher density, viscosity, surface tension and presence of higher number of double bonds in their structure. However, the SMD of SF oil was little smaller than KO. Thus, it can be concluded that non-edible Karanj oil showed little better combustion characteristics in comparison to edible Sunflower oil in same engine under similar operating conditions.

11:00-13:00 Session Energy Storage 1
Chair:
Mitchell Anstey (Sandia National Laboratories, USA)
Location: VMCC 21
11:00
Daniel Abraham (Argonne National Lab, USA)
Enabling Long Life High Energy Density Lithium-Ion Cells

ABSTRACT. Considerable materials research is being conducted worldwide to extend Li-ion battery technology from consumer electronics to hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in HEVs, and battery electric vehicles (EVs). For these transportation applications the battery challenge is to achieve extended driving range (i.e., high energy), high charge/discharge rates (i.e., high power), and long calendar life (i.e., high stability) in a safe and cost-efficient manner. Various lithium-ion battery chemistries, including negative electrodes with various graphite morphologies, positive electrodes containing layered– and spinel–oxides, and electrolytes containing various salts and additives are being examined at Argonne. Our recent focus has been on layered lithium-rich transition metal oxide based positive with graphite and/or silicon based negative electrodes. Cells containing these electrodes yield high energy densities but show significant degradation in performance during electrochemical cycling. This presentation will review results from our cell life testing and physicochemical diagnostic experiments, and identify phenomena and mechanism responsible for cell performance and degradation. Strategies to design safe, long-life, lithium-ion cells, which include the development of electrolyte additives and electrode coatings, will be highlighted.

11:30
Kelsey Haddad (Washington University in St.Louis, USA)
Tandeep Chadha (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
Ramesh Ralyia (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
Pratim Biswas (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
Sagar Mitra (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India)
Gas Phase Synthesis of One-dimensional Single Crystal Tin Oxide Nanostructured Lithium-ion Battery Anodes

ABSTRACT. Despite improved performance, the commercial production of tin oxide anodes for lithium ion batteries has been limited by both material instability and a lack of scalable manufacturing processes. Aerosol chemical vapor deposition (ACVD) is a single-step gas phase synthesis method for thin film deposition under ambient pressure conditions. Beyond scalability and cost efficiency, the ACVD system is advantageous in its ability to provide precise control over film morphology. In this study, ACVD is used to directly deposit tin oxide thin films onto stainless steel current collectors. To further enhance the cycling performance, graphene was deposited onto the nanocolumns, which results in increased electrical conductivity and enhanced strain relaxation. Although the initial discharge capacity of the graphene coated SnO2 was the same as the bare SnO2, after 40 cycles the graphene coated SnO2 had a higher capacity retention of 66% (598.84mAh/g).

11:45
Swapnil Rajoba (Electrochemical Energy Materials Laboratory, Department of Physics, Rajaram College, Kolhapur 416 004, India)
Lata Jadhav (Electrochemical Energy Materials Laboratory, Department of Physics, Rajaram College, Kolhapur 416 004, India)
Salil Varma (Chemistry Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400 085, India)
Bina Wani (Chemistry Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400 085, India)
Shyamala Bharadwaj (Chemistry Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai 400 085, India)
Structural morphological and electrical studies of LiFePO4 synthesized by solution combustion method

ABSTRACT. Solution combustion synthesis is one of the simple, cost effective and rapid processes for the production of nano-particles of variety of metal oxides. In present work the nano crystalline LiFePO4 (LFP) powder has been synthesized by solution combustion synthesis technique. The LFP is very sensitive to oxygen atmosphere forming oxide of iron. Therefore, the oxidant to fuel ratio is increased to create the reducing atmosphere which helped to form single phase LFP powder. The decomposition temperature of as prepared sample is confirmed by TG-DTA. The orthorhombic phase pure LFP is obtained after calcination at 700 ᵒC in nitrogen atmosphere as confirmed by XRD. Elemental mapping is done by using EDAX. SEM shows porous morphology of LFP powder. The DC conductivity of the LEP at room temperature is 7.6 × 10 -6 S/cm.

12:00
Binson Babu (IISER TVM, India)
Lashmi P.G (IISER TVM, India)
M.M Shaijumon (IISER TVM, India)
High Performance Lithium-ion Hybrid Electrochemical Capacitor Based on Li4Ti5O12 and Rice husk-Derived Porous Carbon

ABSTRACT. Development of energy storage systems with high energy and power densities along with long cycle life is very essential, as the global energy demand continues to grow with the growing dependence in portable electronic devices, electrically driven vehicles and smart grids. Lithium-ion battery (LIB) and supercapacitor (SC) are the obvious choices, with LIB exhibiting higher energy density, but having lower power density [1]. Supercapacitor, on the other hand, exhibits much higher power density along with long life time, however, suffers with its limited energy density [2]. To address this issue, a major effort has been focussed on the development of hybrid energy devices that would combine the best properties of LIB and SC, resulting in improved energy and power densities, along with good cycle life [3]. There is great interest in Lithium-ion hybrid electrochemical capacitors (Li-HEC), which in principle combine a high-energy LIB intercalation electrode with a high-power electrochemical double layer capacitor (EDLC) electrode, wherein the synergistic effects from the combined faradaic and non-faradaic configuration results in improved device performances [4]. The concept first introduced by Amatucci et al.,[5] integrating the high surface area carbonaceous material as cathode and the crystalline Li-intercalating material as anode in Li based non-aqueous electrolyte, looks very promising. There have been several attempts to build Li-HECs with different Li-intercalation anodes and porous carbon cathodes. However, it is very important to develop efficient carbon electrodes with tailored porosity characteristics to achieve better overall performance of the hybrid device. The present study describes a high-energy and high-power density hybrid supercapacitor based on Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) anode and a chemically activated porous carbon cathode. Porous carbon derived from rice husk (RHDPC) which is chemically activated with H3PO4 (RHDPC- H3PO4) and KOH (RHDPC-KOH), exhibit very high surface area of 1754 m2g-1 and 2303 m2g-1, respectively. Individual half-cell measurements vs. metallic Li are performed for both Li4Ti5O12 and RHDPC electrodes in order to balance the mass loading between the electrodes in full Li-HEC cell. The hybrid device demonstrates excellent electrochemical performance, delivering a maximum energy density of ~ 52 Whkg-1 at a maximum power density of 4 kWkg-1, with the RHDPC-KOH cathode. In addition, the study shows excellent cyclability of the device, with capacity retention of ~92% after morethan 2000 cycles. The present work thus demonstrates a careful and systematic approach to realize a high performance hybrid electrochemical energy storage device.

12:15
Mini Vellakkat (MANGALORE UNIVERSITY, India)
Polyaniline/Nickel Oxide –a Core/Shell Structured Nanocomposite as Electrode Material in Super Capacitor Applications.

ABSTRACT. Abstract: In this paper, the supercapacitor electrode properties of a core/shell multifunctional nano composite, with unique physiochemical properties, is presented. The synthesis method of polyaniline /NiO (PAESNI) with polyaniline (PANI) shell on NiO core, their morphological studies including Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to know their surface chemistry and most important property required for explaining super capacitor properties like Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) and Charging Discharging studies (GCD) are explained. TEM and SEM images reveal that the polyaniline shells as-prepared are narrowly dispersed on NiO nano particles and possess uniform morphologies. CV shows that the PAESNI exhibits multiple redox behaviour during potentiodynamic cycling in acidic media at different potentials. A simple and cost-effective preparation technique with hierarchical structure and good capacitive behaviour (362 Fg-1 at 1Ag-1 current density and 372 Fg-1 at 20 mVs-1 scan rate), Energy density (50.2WhKg-1 at 1Ag-1 current density), Power density (2kWKg-1) and 99% coulombic efficiency at 4Ag-1 current density encourages its commercial use as a high performance supercapacitor electrode.

12:30
Aninda Bhattacharya (IISc Bangalore, India)
Elucidating the Critical Role of Materials Design on Electrochemical Performance

ABSTRACT. Ion and electron transport at small length scales play a critical role in determining the effective macroscopic parameters of electrochemical devices. The materials composition and structure has a major influence and intrinsically determines the electron and ion transport in the bulk and various interfaces. Composite and hybrid (inorganic-organic) assemblies, where synergistic and confinement effects play a critical role, offers multiple opportunities for the design of advanced functional materials for efficient energy generation and storage. The importance of materials: composition, components configuration, morphology on the electrochemical phenomena will be discussed under the following topics:

  • Semiconductor assemblies for solar photon harvesting
  • Nanostructured electrode for lithium-based rechargeable batteries
  • “Structured” liquid electrolytes
  • Electron transfer in confined protein
11:00-13:00 Session MOEC 1
Chair:
Chin Pan (National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan)
Location: VMCC 13
11:00
G.P. Das (IACS, India)
First principles design of materials for Hydrogen storage: from Complex Hydrides to Functionalized Nanostructures

ABSTRACT. One of the challenges faced by materials scientists and engineers is to find the right material for hydrogen storage, that satisfy the desirable criteria viz. high storage capacity, satisfactory kinetics, and optimal thermodynamics. Complex hydrides involving light metals, such as Alanates, Imides, Borates, Amidoboranes etc. show impressive gravimetric efficiencies, although the hydrogen desorption temperatures turn out to be rather high [1,2]. Nanostructuring (via ball milling) is expected to improve the desorption enthalpy as well as the desorption temperature due to the higher diffusivity of hydrogen and higher surface to volume ratios of the nanoclusters, (as has been shown for MgnH2n nanoclusters [3]). Apart from complex hydrides, there are other kinds of novel materials that have been investigated, e.g. carbon based materials activated with nano-catalysts, metal-organic complexes, and more recently nanostructured cages viz. fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene-like 2D sheets decorated with simple or transition metals that serve to attract hydrogen in molecular form.

In this talk, I shall focus on first-principles design of materials for hydrogen storage, from complex hydrides to various kinds of functionalized nanostructures, and discuss some of the recent results obtained in our laboratory on both the two above mentioned classes of materials [4-10]. There are some outstanding issues and challenges, like how to circumvent the problem of metal clustering on surface, or how to bring down the hydrogen desorption temperature etc., which will be discussed.

References :

[1] Gour P. Das and Saswata Bhattacharya, “Simulation, Modelling and Design of Hydrogen Storage Materials”, Proc. Indian Natn Sci Acad 81(4), 939 (2015).

[2] S. Bhattacharya and G.P. Das, “First principles design of complex chemical hydrides as hydrogen storage materials”,  Review Article in ‘Concepts and Methods in Modern Theoretical Chemistry’, Eds. S.K. Ghosh and P.K. Chattaraj (CRC Press, 2013) pp. 415-430.

[3] P. Banerjee, K.R.S. Chandrakumar, G.P. Das, AIP Conf. Proc. 1665, 050065 (2015).

[4] S. Bhattacharya, G. Wu, Chen Ping, Y.P. Feng and G.P. Das, J. Phys. Chem. B 112 (2008) 11381.

[5] S. Barman, P. Sen and G.P. Das, J. Phys. Chem. C 112, 19953 (2008).

[6] S. Bhattacharya, C. Majumder and G.P. Das, J. Phys. Chem. C Letter 112, 17487 (2008).

[7] S. Bhattacharya, C. Majumder and G.P. Das, Bull. Mater. Sci. 32, 353 (2009).

[8] S. Bhattacharya, C. Majumder and G.P. Das, J. Phys. Chem. C  Letter 113 15783 (2009).

[9] A. Bhattacharya, S. Bhattacharya, C. Majumder and G.P. Das, J. Phys. Chem. C  114, 102097 (2010).

[10] S. Bhattacharya, A. Bhattacharya, G.P. Das, J. Phys. Chem. C 116, 3840 (2012).

11:30
Karuppasamy P (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Srinivasan M (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Aravinth K (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Ramasamy P (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Numerical Modelling on Modified Directional Solidification Process of Multi-crystalline Silicon Growth for Photovoltaic Applications

ABSTRACT. A transient global model was used to investigate the effect of bottom grooved furnace upon the directional solidification (DS) process of multi-crystalline silicon (mc-Si). The numerical simulation assumed geometry is perfect 2D axis-symmetry. The temperature distribution, crystal-melt (c-m) interface, thermal stress and dislocation density have been simulated. The modified heat exchanger block system was used for controlling the temperature gradient at the bottom of the crucible. The obtained result shows convex shape of the c-m interface. The von Mises stress and dislocation density were reduced while using the bottom grooved furnace. This work was carried out in the different grooves of radius 30 and 60 mm of the heat exchanger block of the DS furnace.

11:45
Rajat Jain (TATA Technologies Ltd, Pune, India, India)
Piyush Kulkarni (Bitmapper Integration Technologies, Pune, India, India)
Ranjit Patil (BITS PILANI, India)
Mahesh Dasar (BITS Pilani, India)
Investigation on Fluid Dynamic Characteristics of Square Barrel Wall Fins on Efficiency of A Cyclone Separator

ABSTRACT. In the present paper, the effects of helical fin with square cross section fixed on the inner surface of barrel wall of the cyclone separator is studied. 3D CFD simulations using ANSYS-Fluent 15 were accomplished to study the effect of barrel wall fin on cyclone separator’s performance in terms of collection efficiency and fluid dynamic characteristics like pressure drop along the height of the cyclone separator, tangential velocity. The effects of fin pitch were also investigated. The different characteristics for finned models were also compared with non-finned cyclone separator. A 2D2D Lapple model of cyclone separator was used with a barrel diameter of 200 mm, with and without fins. The geometry was modelled using Pro-E 5.0, and meshed in ICEM CFD 15.0. Post processing simulations were performed using Fluent 15.0. . The turbulence model used was the Reynolds’ Stress Model. Discrete phase Lagrangian model was used to simulate the gas-solid flow. Computational results were validated using published numerical and experimental data for the cyclone separator without fins, and further CFD simulations were performed for fin based cyclone separator.

12:00
Kiran Naik (Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, India)
A Varshney (Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, India)
Palanisamy Muthukumar (Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, India)
C Somayaji (Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, India)
Modeling and performance analysis of an evacuated tube solar collector using H2O-LiCl as a desiccant solution

ABSTRACT. This paper presents the modeling and simulation of a solar driven liquid desiccant regenerator used for moisture removal in a liquid desiccant dehumidification system. The input heat (solar energy), which is incident on an evacuated tube solar collector surface, is evaluated through a mathematical model in terms of dimensionless heat difference ratio, efficiency and overall heat transfer coefficient. Aqueous lithium chloride (H2O-LiCl) solution is chosen as a working fluid. A finite volume method is used for discretizing the combined heat and mass transfer equations. Fluent 14.5 software is used as a platform for simulation purpose. The effects of desiccant solution flow rate and temperature, collector length, ambient temperature and solar intensity on the performance of the system are investigated. It has been observed that collector length, solution flow rate and solar intensity have greater impact on performance of the evacuated tube collector. The desiccant inlet temperature does not have any significant effect. Also, a detailed analysis on inner tube material is carried out in order to predict the best suitable material for aqueous lithium chloride solution and the results are presented in the full manuscript

12:15
Vaibhav Jain (MAIT, India)
Gulshan Sachdeva (National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India, India)
Surendra Singh Kachhwaha (Pt. Deendayal Petroleum University, Gujarat, India, India)
Estimation of optimum heat exchanger area of vapor compression-absorption integrated system using modified irreversibility approach

ABSTRACT. This paper presents the optimum size and cost estimation of vapor compression-absorption integrated system (VCAIS) using coefficient of structural bond (CSB) method of thermoeconomic optimization. The optimum area of heat exchanger is estimated provided overall heat transfer coefficient, operational and cost parameters are known along with CSB values. The modified as well as conventional Gouy-Stodola equation is used to compute the irreversibility and CSB of VCAIS and its components. The CSB method based on modified method predicts significant reduction in total annual cost of plant operation as compared to base case. The total optimized annual cost of plant operation determined by structural method is lower by 8.1% (conventional method) and 7.0% (modified method) as compared to base value. Comparison of structural method with an integrated optimization algorithm from Engineering Equation Solver (EES) shows that the modified method predicts the total annual cost of plant operation in a more accurate manner.

12:30
Aravindan G (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Srinivasan M (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Aravinth K (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Ramasamy P (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Numerical analysis of operating parameter in mc-Si for Directional solidification process

ABSTRACT. Numerical simulation have been made on multi crystalline-Silicon (mc-Si) growth by directional solidification (DS) process for Photovoltaic (PV) application. Heat transfer plays an important role in the DS process as dislocation density and growth rate are controlled by temperature gradient of the DS furnace. The heat transfer in the DS furnace is controlled by movement of side wall insulation at different speed from the bottom insulation. The simulation results show that the thermal stress in the mc-Si ingot for 0.2 mm/min velocity is minimum. The flux from the crucible and dislocation density of mc-Si ingot ware discussed.

12:45
Mahesh Shelar (K K Wagh Institute of Engineering Nasik, India)
Govind Kulkarni (College of Engineering Pune, India)
Sunil Bagade (Dr. Daulatrao Aher College of Engineering,Karad, India)
Energy and Exergy analysis of diesel engine powered trigeneration systems

ABSTRACT. This article presents the thermodynamic analysis of diesel engine powered trigeneration system considering the actual engine data of 200 kVA engine systems. Trigeneration systems considered for analysis comprises of a diesel engine integrated with absorption chillers. For better thermodynamic performance of a trigeneration system for cooling applications, absorption chillers integrated with engine systems should accept the heat energy at almost the same temperature at which it is available. With this consideration two trigeneration systems with a diesel engine generator integrated with waste energy recovery system is examined. System one integrates a low grade heat energy recovered from engine jacket water with single effect chiller and high grade heat energy from exhaust gases with double effect chiller. System two combines recovered energy for use in a single chiller. Analysis of such trigeneration configurations cannot be based on first law analysis alone. This paper through an energy and exergy analysis of a trigeneration system under cooling mode, recommends the use of a trigeneration system with two chillers over a trigeneration system with single chiller. Operating the trigeneration system near the rated capacity of engines improves its energetic as well as Exergetic performance.

11:00-13:00 Session Biofuels 1
Chair:
Praveen Linga (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
Location: VMCC 22
11:00
Anvita Sharma (Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, India)
Pravin Kodgire (Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, India)
Surendra Singh (Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, India)
H.B Raghavendra (School of Technology, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, India)
Kartik Thakkar (Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, India)
Application of Microwave Energy for Biodiesel Production using Waste Cooking Oil

ABSTRACT. In the present experimental study, waste cooking oil has been used as feedstock to produce biodiesel using microwave energy. Homogeneous (KOH) and heterogeneous catalyst (CaO) has been selected for comparative performance study. Preliminary observations using KOH catalyst show that more than 80% GC-MS yield is achieved from 180W power of microwave.

11:15
R Chakraborty (Jadavpur University, India)
P Mukhopadhyay (Jadavpur University, India)
B Kumar (Jadavpur University, India)
P Mukherjee (Jadavpur University, India)
Assessment of 2- Ethyl hexyl acetate as Biodiesel Additive: Property evaluation and Engine Performance Analyses

ABSTRACT. Synthesis of 2- ethyl hexyl acetate (EHA) through esterification of acetic acid with 2-ethyl hexanol (EH) was investigated using heterogeneous Amberlyst 15 catalyst. The reactions were performed with 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1 molar ratios of EH to acetic acid over 70oC to 90oC reaction temperature range. Catalyst amount was varied from 10-14 wt%. 66.83% conversion was achieved at the optimum reaction parameters for a reaction time of 75 minutes; representing an economically viable synthesis. The purified product 2-ethyl hexyl acetate was blended (1, 2 and 3 vol%) with palm biodiesel and the engine(4-stroke,single cylinder,1450-1600 rpm) performance-emission characteristics were analyzed. Notably, there was a decrease in carbon monoxide, oxygen and NOx emission with increment of EHA concentration in the blended biodiesel. Besides, addition of EHA to biodiesel could result in reduction of pour point significantly. Thus, in terms of fuel properties, engine performance and emission characteristics; 2-ethyl hexyl acetate seems to possess promising attributes to be used as a biodiesel additive.

11:30
Sushant Satputaley (VNIT Nagpur, India)
Dhananjay Zodpe (VNIT Nagpur, India)
Nishikant Deshpande (NIT silcher, Asam, India)
Performance, Combustion and Exhaust Emissions Analysis of a Diesel Engine Fueled with Algae Oil and Algae Biodiesel

ABSTRACT. Algal oil was obtained from microalgae chlorella vulgaris. The microalgae was cultivated in open pond system. Upon harvesting, the biomass was centrifuged and dried. The algal oil was obtained by a solvent extraction method using n-hexane as solvent. By this method 28% of algal oil is obtained from dry algae biomass. Transesterification process is carried out to produce algae biodiesel by adding potassium hydroxide and methanol. The biodiesel yield obtained is 85%. The testing of algae oil and algae biodiesel is carried out to know the calorific value, density and kinematic viscosity. Performance and combustion parameters were analyzed on a Kirloskar single cylinder direct injection compression ignition engine. The compression ratio is 17.5. It develops 5.2 kW brake power at rated speed of 1500 rpm with diesel as fuel. The engine is initially run on diesel fuel to generate baseline data and after that it is run on straight algae oil and algae biodiesel, similar loading conditions is used for all the fuels. The Brake Specific Fuel Consumption, Brake Specific Energy Consumption, Brake Thermal Efficiency, smoke opacity, CO2, CO, HC, NOx, and O2 were studied. The trials conducted on diesel engine with algae oil and algae biodiesel show that results are comparable to diesel fuel.

11:45
Puneet Verma (Biofuel Research Laboratory, Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, Indian Institute of Techonology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India -247667, India)
M.P. Sharma (Biofuel Research Laboratory, Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, Indian Institute of Techonology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India -247667, India)
Gaurav Dwivedi (Biofuel Research Laboratory, Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, Indian Institute of Techonology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India -247667, India)
Effect of Short Chain Alcohols on Yield of Biodiesel Produced from Pongamia Oil

ABSTRACT. The crude oil prices in world market is increasing day by day and focus is being shifted to find out substitutes of petroleum diesel and biodiesel has emerged out to be potential alternative fuel. In earlier times, biodiesel was mainly being produced from edible oils but that has led negative impact due to scarcity of food crops in developing nations. So non-edible oils are found to be suitable for biodiesel production and Pongamia oil is selected as it is 2nd in availability among non-edible oils. Main hindrance towards production of biodiesel is the technologies adopted. Up till now, only methanol and to a lesser extent ethanol has been preferred for transesterification. There is scope of using higher alcohols for production of biodiesel and as n-butanol can be obtained from renewable sources, it also holds good prospect. As per the literature, optimised reaction parameters have been studied and followed for transesterification reactions to reduce the cost of production which includes, 1% Catalyst Concentration of NaOH by weight of oil, 6:1 alcohol to oil molar ratio, 60 °C reaction temperature and 60 minutes reaction time. Yield of biodiesel prepared from different short chain alcohols (methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol and n-butanol) was compared for optimising the selection of alcohol.

12:00
Suchithra Thangalazhy Gopakumar (The University of Nottingham, Malaysia)
Chi Wei Lee (The University of Nottingham, Malaysia)
Suyin Gan (The University of Nottingham, Malaysia)
Hoon Kiat Ng (The University of Nottingham, Malaysia)
Lai Yee Lee (The University of Nottingham, Malaysia)
Comparison of Bio-oil Properties from Non-Catalytic and In-situ Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis of Palm Empty Fruit Brunch

ABSTRACT. In recent years, the conversion of biomass as a renewable energy source has started gaining momentum. Fast pyrolysis is a thermochemical process that converts dry biomass to a liquid product known as bio oil, as well as bio-char and gas in the absence of oxygen. Fast pyrolysis is carried out at medium temperature near 500oC and atmospheric pressure with a residence times of less than 2 s for vapors. Bio-oil can be used as an energy carrier, feedstock for chemicals, or further upgraded as transportation fuel. However, its negative attributes such as high acidity, high oxygen and moisture contents, and lower heating value renders bio-oil unfavorable for direct usage. Therefore, researchers are finding economically feasible upgrading methods for bio-oil production from locally available biomass. The most promising method is catalytic treatment, where bio-oil properties are improved by incorporating catalyst either during pyrolysis or during upgrading treatment of bio-oil. Malaysia is the second largest producer and world’s largest exporter of palm oil. Palm oil industries produce a substantial amount of agricultural wastes, in which palm empty fruit brunch (EFB) is the most abundant waste. In this study, EFB is selected as the feedstock for pyrolysis studies. In-situ catalytic fast pyrolysis operates using the same principle as catalytic cracking, where the catalyst is introduced during pyrolysis to induce simultaneous cracking and pyrolysis. Catalytic fast pyrolysis is the simplest solution to improve bio-oil properties and therefore, downstream upgrading process can be economically feasible. Various cracking catalysts were tested for catalytic fast pyrolysis studies where most of the studies are focused on zeolite catalysts. A high reduction in bio-oil yield and rapid catalyst deactivation are the major concerns with zeolite catalysts. Currently, inexpensive base oxides such as CaO, MgO and ZnO are tested in a few studies, which give almost similar bio-oil yield as that of non-catalytic fast pyrolysis. Therefore, current project has focused on CaO catalyst for in-situ catalytic fast pyrolysis of EFB for bio-oil production. In this project, fixed bed pyrolysis at a furnace temperature of 550oC in the presence of nitrogen gas was conducted for bio-oil production. For in-situ catalytic pyrolysis, different ratios of EFB and CaO catalyst (99:1, 95:5, 90:10) were mixed thoroughly and the mixtures underwent pyrolysis. Non-catalytic pyrolysis of EFB yielded 43.5±0.5 wt% of bio-oil and 30.4±1.0 wt% bio-char. Catalytic pyrolysis at different ratios of biomass and catalyst also provided similar yield for bio-oil. A distinct tar and aqueous phases were visible for EFB (non-catalytic) bio-oil where the homogeneity of bio-oil increased as the catalyst loading increased. The yield, physical and chemical properties of bio-oil for the non-catalytic and in-situ catalytic fast pyrolysis of EFB over CaO catalyst (at different ratios) will be presented for extended abstract and conference.

12:15
Sunil Kumar (CERD, Mech. Engg., IIT (BHU), India)
Dr.Shailendra Kumar Shukla (CERD,Mech.Engg., IIT (BHU), India)
STUDY OF DEGRADATION OF QUALITY OF SOYABEAN BIODIESEL WITH STORAGE TIME AND ITS EMISSIONS ON VARIOUS LOADS

ABSTRACT. With many of its properties matching with that of the diesel oil and its possible applicability in the existing compression-ignition engine, biodiesel production and commercialization has gained enough popularity in the science society since its discovery in the late 19th century. Researchers have succeeded in producing large varieties of biodiesel from various plants and microbial extracts and a much of investigations are made on their various characteristic properties and are further compared with those of diesel oil. The main disadvantage of biodiesel is its quality degradation with storage time which is mainly due to the rancidity that the biodiesel faces upon storage. Not much investigations and observations on the degradation of biodiesel are known and much of the current discussions have mainly been focused on the change in the flow characteristics. This paper investigates on the degradation of the burning characteristics namely:- calorific value and viscosity (as a flow characteristic) of soyabean methyl ester (SBME) over a storage period of 15 days ; stored in polyethylene tank and stored in a dark place. The emissions of the biodiesel blended at different proportion with the conventional diesel oil were also observed for varying load and compression ratios of the CI engine. A decreasing curve for the calorific value and an increasing curve for kinematic viscosity were observed for the SBME sample at different storage period. The carbon monoxide content in the emission decreases with the increase in the load, while the hydrocarbon content remains nearly constant. Nitrogen monoxide and carbon dioxide content increases with increase in load to a particular point of maxima and then decreases with further increase in the load. The oxygen content shows exactly the opposite behaviour with respect to carbon dioxide. The nature of the emission curve for B10, B20 and B30 curve remains similar with respect to different loads at various compression ratios of the engine.

12:30
Avinash Agarwal (IIT Kanpur, India)
Optical Diagnostics: Possibilities for Next Generation IC Engine Powertrain Development and Emission Compliance

ABSTRACT. To meet emission legislations, different modern engine technologies and exhaust gas after-treatment methods have been developed. Fuel-air mixing is the most fundamental process, which affects diesel combustion and pollutant formation. Fuel-air mixing is mainly affected by in-cylinder air flow and fuel spray. Different optical diagnostic techniques have been used to gain insight into the single steps forming the functional chain of engine combustion processes and complex interplay between these single steps. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is a technique, which is non-intrusive and has been used for in-cylinder air-flow characterization. In-cylinder measurements of the instantaneous 3D flow-field are the next level methods for better understanding of turbulent mixing of fuel and air inside the combustion chamber. This can be achieved by time-resolved tomographic PIV, which provides important information of in-cylinder flow characteristics due to its measurement capability of all three components of velocity within a targeted volume. Fuel spray characteristics is another important aspect, which can be performed using Phase Doppler Interferometry (PDI). PDI is based on the light scattering interferometry principle, which helps in characterizing accurately fuel spray inside the optically accessible combustion chamber. It provides information about droplet size and droplet velocity in all three directions, which affects fuel-air mixing and combustion. To gain inside view of combustion process, optical visualization techniques such as engine endoscopy can be used for time resolved spatial combustion visualization and characterization in a production grade engine. It can provide valuable information about aspects of combustion including use of alternative fuels in a time resolved manner, which is not possible by any other conventional technique. These techniques are new and powerful diagnostics tools for efficiency improvement and emission compliance.

12:15-13:00 Session Fuel Cells
Chair:
M M Shaijumon (IISER Thiruvananthapuram, India)
Location: VMCC 12
12:15
Rajendranath Basu (CSIR-CGCRI, India)
Functionally Graded LSCF-CGO-based Interlayers and Electrodes: An Insight towards the Cell Stability on Long Term Operation

ABSTRACT. Nanocrystalline La-Sr-Co-Fe-O (LSCF) family is found with prime interest because of their intrinsic higher oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) rate. However, voltage deterioration on long term operation caused by partial de-mixing of strontium is of great concern for its use. Under the present investigation, several approaches are adopted to stabilize the LSCF-based electrode. The composite interlayers are synthesized and screen printed in between LSCF-based electrode and cobalt, gadolinium doped ceria (CoCGO)-based conventional interlayer with layerwise variation of mass ratios of LSCF and CoCGO. Functionally graded interlayers helps in effective trapping of Sr and induces the stability. The cell degradation is found to be 3.8% for 600 h under the constant circuit load of 0.5 A.cm-2 with peak current density of 2.41 A.cm-2 at 800oC using air as oxidant. Functional core-shell cathode particulate is also synthesized by combustion technique having doped ceria as core and LSCF-based electrode as shell. Surface passivation of synthesized LSCF-based cathode layer is attempted by infiltrating Ba-Co-Fe-Zr-Y-O based systems. Fabricated single cells with such cathodes are found with 4.5% and 3.5% voltage degradation up to 600 h of operation under the similar applied circuit load. Cell stability is clinically correlated with the process engineering and electrochemical properties of the synthesized electrodes-interlayers. 

12:45
Baijnath (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India, India)
Pankaj Tiwari (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India, India)
Suddhasatwa Basu (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India, India)
Comparative Study of Cathode Materials for Low Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Synthesized by Different Methods

ABSTRACT. Lanthanum Strontium Cobaltite (LSCO) has been synthesized using different methods i.e., Sol-gel method, Glycine-nitrate method and Solid state route to use as cathode in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). As prepared cathode materials have been characterized by XRD, SEM and EDX to assess the purity and morphology. Cathodes, half-cells (Cathode/Electrolyte) and symmetric cells (Cathode/Electrolyte/Cathode) have been fabricated using palletization technique. The electrical conductivity measurements for cathodes have been carried out using 2-probe AC conductivity method (Electrochemical Impedance Spectra, EIS). Electrical conductivity value is 0.4 S/cm at 600 °C for cathode prepared by Sol-gel method, which is the highest among all other cathode materials. Area specific resistance (ASR) for half-cell and symmetric cell has been calculated using EIS between 100-800 °C. It is observed that ASR value decreased as temperature increased, which shows decrease in polarization losses and enhanced performance of cell. Physical characterization such as SEM, XRD and EDX have been done before and after cell testing to assess the performance of electrodes.

13:00-14:00Lunch
14:00-14:45 Session Keynote 1: Keynote 1
Chair:
Juzer Vasi (IIT Bombay, India)
Location: Main Auditorium
14:00
Pratim Biswas (WUStL, USA)
The Energy-Environment Nexus: Global Challenges Addressed by Collaborative Education and Research

ABSTRACT. The presentation will address the critical linkages between energy and environment.  The realistic scenario of a mixed energy portfolio in the upcoming future will be highlighted.  The important need to innovate on environmentally benign approaches for energy production from a variety of primary sources, including fossil, nuclear and renewable sources will be elucidated.  The importance of energy efficiency measures will be described, along with the need for producing more energy to drive development in certain parts of the world.  The talk will also describe the enabling approaches of a focused discipline, nanoparticle aerosol science and technology in addressing energy and environmental issues.  Collaborative efforts of a 29 university network through the McDonnell Academy Global Energy and Environmental Partnership (MAGEEP) will be discussed.  A few areas for collaborative action will be highlighted.

15:00-15:40 Session Theme 2
Chair:
Sagar Mitra (IITBombay, India)
Location: VMCC 22
15:00
S Sampath (IISc, India)
Nitrides, Carbides and Chalcogenides for Electrocatalysis

ABSTRACT. There has been tremendous interest in finding suitable catalysts for electrocatalysis of oxidation of small molecules (methanol, for example), oxygen reduction / evolution (fuel cells and metal-air batteries) and hydrogen evolution. These interfacial reactions generally occur at a solid electrode – electrolyte surface and following the kinetics and mechanism is a considerable challenge. One needs to look for new and novel materials in addition to in-situ techniques that could be used.

Our group has been working on transition metal nitrides, carbides and (layered) chalcogenides for catalyzing oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and small molecule oxidation (methanol, ethanol etc.). The present talk will highlight some of the recent developments from our laboratory based on new and nanostructured electrode materials.

  1. Chem. Comm.,DOI: 10.1039/c5cc06730h, 2015;  50,7359, 2014.
  2. Nanoscale, 6, 12856, 2014;  5,10646, 2013.
  3. Energy Env. Sci., 7, 1110, 2014.
  4. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 17(36), 23448, 2015; 15(22), 8744, 2013
15:00-15:40 Session Theme 1
Chair:
Suneet Singh (IIT Bombay, India)
Location: VMCC 21
15:00
Rizwan Uddin (University of Illinois, USA)
Role of Nuclear in the Energy Mix and Technologies for the Future of Nuclear Energy

ABSTRACT. Nuclear power is unarguably the most finicky of the energy sources—not because of its availability or the science behind it, but largely because of public perception. It is the energy source that is most global in the sense that a major—or even a minor—nuclear accident anywhere around the world strongly impacts public perception everywhere.  Despite the slowdown in some economies, and rapid development of other renewable energy sources, development of nuclear power continues at a fast pace in many countries. In the intermediate time scale (50 – 150 years), nuclear power will likely play a significant role in some economies, and is likely to regain acceptance in others, mostly due to increasing recognition of potentially disastrous effects of global warming.

Advances in materials, modeling and simulation, nuclear fuel cycle analysis, and manufacturing processes are expected to play an important role in bringing economically viable, new nuclear reactor technologies to the market.   

15:40-16:00Tea/Coffee Break
16:00-18:00 Session Oxide Materials
Chair:
Rasit Turan (Middle East Technical University, Turkey)
Location: VMCC 12
16:00
Guy Ankonina (Technion, Israel)
Controlling the Transparency in Transparent Conductive Oxides

ABSTRACT. Transparent conductive metal oxides (TCOs) such as ITO and AZO are mostly used as transparent contacts in various optoelectronic devices such as displays and photovoltaic cells. For several years now, there has been great interest in extending the absorption of the photovoltaic cells to the near infra-red (NIR) range. Therefore, the challenge in the manufacture of the TCOs is to tweak their transparency in the NIR range i.e. reducing the absorption in that range.

Most of the TCOs are based on wide band gap metal oxides matrix which are heavily doped (1019-1021cm-3). In this state they are highly absorbent in the NIR range. This is due to the interactions of the free electrons with the phonons and the ionized metal dopants in the lattice. Here we show the correlation between the dielectric constants and the mobility and the concentration of the free electrons. We show that by controlling the mobility and the free electron concentration we can improve the transparency of the film without impeding the conductivity of the film.    

16:30
Kapil Sood (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India)
Suddhasatwa Basu (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India)
Na-doped SrSiO3 material: structure and its conductivity

ABSTRACT. SrSiO3 and 40mol% Na-doped SrSiO3 have been synthesized using solid state reaction method. The as-sintered materials are structurally characterized using XRD and Raman analysis. The XRD results shows that single polycrystalline phase is formed in the present system. Na-content slightly distorts the parent phase, which may leads to modification in the monoclinic structure. The Raman analysis indicates some glassy phase co-formed in 40mol% Na-doped SrSiO3 system. The conductivity behavior of the samples were investigated using ac impedance spectroscopy. The electrical conductivity of Na-doped system is 22.8 mS/cm at 800 C in air.

16:45
Barkha Tiwari (I.I.T Kharagpur, India)
Shanker Ram (I.I.T Kharagpur, India)
A simple synthesis of nanostructured CaIn2O4 using aloe vera nectar

ABSTRACT. Synthesis of a nanostructured CaIn2O4 is important to explore its utility as an optical host for doping rare-earth and other optical species for devising light-emitters, optical data storage system, and other optical devices. CaIn2O4 is an important wideband gap semiconductor and it is being synthesized using several methods like sol-gel chemistry and co-precipitation from a liquid precursor in air in refining the microstructure and functional properties for different applications.1-3 A green synthesis route has its own merit in minimizing toxicity in such materials, especially for medical and biological applications. Fresh nectars extracted from many green plants can be an emerging source to host a controlled chemical reaction for synthesizing certain metals and oxide derivatives of controlled size and/or shape with functionalized optical and other properties in a simple “green synthesis route”. Considering these technical points, here we synthesize CaIn2O4 of a granular nanostructure using a fresh gel extracted from green aloe vera (Aloe barbadensis mill). An advantage with such kinds of a green gel is that it readily absorbs the metal ions from an adequate salt precursor so that the later forms a mixed hydrogel. In order to prepare CaIn2O4 in our experiments, a dilute 0.025 M solution of indium acetate In(O2C2H3)3 in 200 mL water was dispersed along with 25 mL of 1 M calcium acetate Ca(O2C2H3)2 in water in aloe vera nectar. On heating at 80-90 C the mixture changes its initial greenish color slowly to a dark brownish color over a period of 80-90 min reaction in the solution and then it was quite stable even after a month or so in open air at room temperature. So obtained hydrogel was dried at room temperature and then burnt along with camphor (fuel) in open air. A recovered powder from the self-propagating combustion in this way was pulverized using a mortar and a pestle to get a refined sample which contains a huge amount 20-30 wt% of byproduct carbon on the combustion of the precursor. It was then ball milled to obtain small CaIn2O4 crystallites dispersed in the carbon in the form of a finely divided loose powder. As-milled and annealed powders at 400-600 C in air (to burn out free carbon impurities) were studied in terms of the crystal structure, microstructure, and light emission in elucidating how a nanostructured CaIn2O4 bonds a residual carbon in a hybrid structure so as it tunes the bandgap and other optical properties.

17:00
Deepak Tyagi (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India)
Sriraksha Srinivasan (St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore, India)
B. N. Wani (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India)
S. R. Bharadwaj (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India)
XPS Studies of Sr doped La2CuO4 : A potential cathode material for IT-SOFCs

ABSTRACT. In this paper, synthesis and characterization of La2-xSrxCuO4-δ(x=0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4) system as a potential cathode material for Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells(IT-SOFCs) has been discussed with special emphasis on XPS studies of the system.

17:15
Hansnath Tiwari (IIT Madras, India)
Prof. U. V. Varadaraju (IIT Madras, India)
Photoluminescent characterization of CaYTiNbO7:Eu3+ as an orange-red emitting phosphor

ABSTRACT. The photoluminescence of Eu3+ doped pyrochlore, CaYTiNbO7 is studied, which have been synthesized at higher temperature via conventional solid state reaction. The solubility of Eu3+ in host lattice of pyrochlore, CaYTiNbO7 was confirmed by powder X-Ray diffraction. The nature of site in host lattice preferred by Eu3+, has been explained with the help of emission spectra, recorded at 392 nm (NUV) and 461 nm (near blue led). Selected composition of this phosphor shows potential application as an orange-red phosphor for solid state lighting.

16:00-18:00 Session Fuels
Chair:
Avinash Agarwal (IIT Kanpur, India)
Location: VMCC 32
16:00
Praveen Linga (NUS, Singapore, Singapore)
Energy Recovery from Natural Gas Hydrates: Prospects and Challenges

ABSTRACT. Large amounts of methane exist in the earth in the form of natural gas hydrates (NGH), an ice-like substance with hydrocarbon molecules trapped within by water cages. The amount of carbon stored as NGH is more than twice the carbon content present in all fossil fuels combined. It has been demonstrated that conventional gas production techniques can be employed to produce energy from natural gas hydrates. Thermal stimulation, depressurization or a combination of both these methods are the approaches to recover natural gas. One innovative and promising solution to secure the future energy needs and mitigate carbon dioxide emissions simultaneously is to replace methane trapped in the gas hydrate deposits with carbon dioxide. There are specific challenges like sand and water management during energy production that needs to be overcome/mitigated to sustain methane production from NGH. Thus, there is an overwhelming need to pursue research and development at laboratories in order to exploit this huge resource in the future. In this presentation, state of the art experimental work in methane production from natural gas hydrates carried out at the National University of Singapore will be summarized and future directions and challenges will be outlined.

16:30
Vijetha Reddy (NIT Calicut, India)
Ann G Sarah (Indian Institute of Science, India)
Bs Rajanikanth (Indian Institute of Science, India)
Exploring Synergy Effect of Plasma with Lignite Ash on NOx Abatement in a Biofuel Exhaust

ABSTRACT. Abstract: The paper focuses on treating the oxides of nitrogen (NOx) present in a biofuel exhaust in a non-conventional way. The biofuel or biodiesel is obtained from pongamia pinnata, a native Indian plant. While the biodiesel emissions have lesser amount of carbon-monoxide and hydrocarbons, it has increased concentration of NOx which needs to be addressed. Dielectric barrier discharges energized by high voltage repetitive pulses was used to cause the chemical reactions in the plasma reactor. The plasma reactor is a dielectric glass reactor with a concentrically placed screw type electrode. To enhance removal of NOx the plasma treatment reactor was connected in cascade with an adsorbent reactor. Pellets made out of lignite fly ash, an industrial waste product, were used as adsorbents. This is a first-time attempt to study plasma-lignite synergistic effect on exhaust gas treatment. Results indicate significant removal of NOx under the laboratory conditions in the cascaded plasma-adsorbent treatment

16:45
Dilip Kumar (IIT BHU, India)
A. S. K. Sinha (IIT BHU Varanasi, India)
Bhawna Verma (IIT BHU Varanasi, India)
Enzymatic Biodiesel Production from Non-edible Oil and its Characterization

ABSTRACT. Lipids are the oils with high viscosity and therefore are not easily injectable. This problem is overcomes by transesterification the oil resulting in biodiesel. Chemical methods are widely used for transesterification in which alcohol mainly methanol is used with sodium hydroxide as catalyst. Lipase based enzymatic transesterification oils is another upcoming ecofriendly technique for the production of biodiesel but the major disadvantage of the technique is loss of activity of the enzyme over period of time, which can be overcomes by the immobilization method. It is found that the non-edible oil like Mahua, Karanja, Castor oil and Jatropha oil are potential raw material for preparation of biodiesel. Castor oil a non-edible oil is a drought and pest resistant crop with the potential to grow on degraded land with a low amount of input. In this study, Castor oil is converted to Castor oil methyl ester known as biodiesel in the presence of immobilized enzyme catalysis. The catalyst used was commercial available lipases Pseudomonas cepacia by immobilizing Pseudomonas cepacia in chitosan beads using entrapment immobilization method. Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy was used to evaluate the castor oil methyl ester yield. A peak was observed at wave number 1735 cm-1 which shows C=O esters. The important process variables for transesterification such as methanol: oil molar ratio, reaction time, temperature, lipase concentration were optimized. The biodiesel properties such as density, flash point, kinematic viscosity, cloud point and pour point were found for Castor oil and Castor methyl ester. The same characteristics were also carried out for diesel fuel for obtaining the base line data for analysis.

17:00
Srikanth H V (Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India)
Venkatesh J (PES College of Engineering, Mandya, India)
Sharanappa Godiganur (Reva Institute of Technology and Management, Bangalore, India)
Bhaskar M (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India)
A study on effect of Cold Flow Improvers on Crystallization Properties of Dairy Washed Milk Scum Oil Biodiesel

ABSTRACT. Biodiesel, a renewable fuel produced from various feedstocks derived from plant and animal origin , is used to replace a portion of the fossil diesel fuel consumed worldwide. Biodiesel has proved itself as a potential alternative source for fossil diesel with several advantages. Biodiesel also has some performance disadvantages. One of the inherent problems with biodiesel is its propensity to solidify at lower temperatures and which limits the widespread use of biodiesel at low temperature environment. In this study, one of the potential fuel synthesized from dairy washed milk scum(DWMS) oil is being reported. Biodiesel obtained from a unique feedstock of the milk processing unit had relatively high saturated fatty acid content confirmed by Gas Chromatography (GC). These highly saturated fatty acids largely affected the cold flow properties of biodiesel. The measured cloud and pour points of this fuel were found to be 170C and 100C respectively, and which were comparatively low as that of petro-diesel. The effect of solvents like ethyl alcohol, acetone and diluents like ethyl acetoacetate and ethyl levulinate which were identified as cold flow improvers of DWMS biodiesel. These additives were mixed with biodiesel at levels of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by volume to study the effect on cold flow properties (cloud and pour points) and results found to have positive effect on the DWMS biodiesel. Crystallization points of pure and additivated milk scum biodiesel were determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) revealed the improvements in the cold flow properties with the shift of crystallization event towards lower tempertures.

17:15
Bemgba Bevan Nyakuma (Institute of Future Economy, Centre of Hydrogen Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia)
Tuan Amran Tuan Abdullah (Institute of Future Economy, Centre of Hydrogen Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia)
Olagoke Oladokun (Institute of Future Economy, Centre of Hydrogen Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia)
Habibu Uthman (Institute of Future Economy, Centre of Hydrogen Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia)
Fatemeh Roozbahani (Department of Clinical Science, Faculty of Bioscience and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia)
Tertsegha John-Paul Ivase (Renewable Energy Unit, National Biotechnology Development Agency, Katsina State, Nigeria, Nigeria)
Biofuel Characterization and Pyrolysis Kinetics of Acacia mangium

ABSTRACT. Acacia mangium is a fast growing tree shrub originally from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia. In Malaysia, A. mangium is an exotic tree species cultivated for soil conservation and reafforestation. However, the high Leaf Litter Accumulation (8.94 t ha-1 yr-1) presents significant waste management challenges. This study aims to explore the bioenergy potential of A. mangium Leaf Litter (AML) as an efficient waste valorization strategy. Consequently, the thermochemical properties of AML was investigated using Elemental, Proximate, Bomb Calorimetric, Thermogravimetric (TG-DTG) and Kissinger kinetic analyses. The results revealed AML contains high concentrations of C (51.86 %), VM (72.06 %) and FC (17.10 %). The heating value, HHV of AML 21.12 MJ/kg is observably higher than A. mangium wood (20.58 MJ/kg) while the comparatively lower Nitrogen and Sulphur points to an excellent sustainable alternative to coal. TG analysis demonstrated the significant influence of temperature on AML decomposition, although complete pyrolytic conversion will only occur at temperatures above 800 °C. The kinetic parameters for AML are; E = 168.70 kJ/mol and A = 1.65 x 1011 min-1 (R2 = 0.99). In general, the results indicate AML possesses the qualities of a potentially clean and renewable solid biofuel for future energy generation.

17:30
Vivek Basumatary (tezpur university, India)
Ruprekha Saikia (tezpur university, India)
Rumi Narzary (tezpur university, India)
Neonjyoti Bordoloi (tezpur university, India)
Lina Gogoi (tezpur university, India)
Debashis Sut (tezpur university, India)
Rupam Kataki (tezpur university, India)
Tea factory waste as a feedstock for thermo-chemical conversion to biofuel and biomaterial

ABSTRACT. The necessity to move towards a feasible sustainable and economical alternative renewable source of energy is increasing day by day due to deminuting availability of the conventional fossil based resources, regular hike in prices of fossil based fuels and increased emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. In this regard, tea factory waste, a major agro-industrial waste in tea factory was pyrolysed in a fixed-bed reactor with the aim to study the product distribution and their characterization and to identify the optimum condition for bio-oil yield. The investigated process variables were temperature (400-700ºC) and heating rate (10 and 40ºC/min).Chemical characterization of bio-oil was carried out using FTIR, NMR and GC-MS. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the obtained char was also taken. This investigation showed that the maximum bio-oil yield of 26.80% was obtained at a final temperature of 500°C, with a heating rate of 40°C min-1. The heating value of the bio-oil is 29.11 MJ/kg.The study showed that tea factory waste have potential for conversion to bio-oil through the process of pyrolysis to supplement the petro-derived liquid fuel for transportation and the biochar produced can be used to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide and enhance soil fertility.

17:45
Vishal Patil (BITS PILANI, India)
Ranjit Patil (BITS PILANI, India)
Effects of Partial Addiction of Butanol in a Rubber seed Oil Methyl Ester Diesel Blend

ABSTRACT. Experiments were conducted to obtain the performance and emission characteristics of rubber seed oil methyl ester diesel blend with partial addiction of butanol [Rubber seed oil methyl ester (40%) + Diesel (40%) + Butanol (20%)] in a single cylinder four stroke diesel engine at constant speed. Performance and emission characteristics of butanol addicted rubber seed oil methyl ester diesel blend were compared with the characteristics of diesel-butanol blend [Diesel (80%) + Butanol (20%)] and diesel, by varying the load on engine [no load (0%) to full load condition (100%)] for the compression ratio at 18:1. It is observed that, performance characteristics of butanol addicted rubber seed oil methyl ester diesel blend like mechanical efficiency and brake thermal efficiency increases with increasing the load percentage. Volumetric efficiency and brake specific fuel consumption decreases with increasing load. The exhaust gas temperature also increases with increasing load percentage. It is also observed that, carbon monoxide emissions were less for all the selected oils. Carbon dioxide emissions were increased with increase in load. NOx emissions obtained while using butanol addicted rubber seed oil methyl ester diesel blend were found to be less than those obtained after the combustion diesel-butanol blend and diesel.

16:00-18:00 Session Hydrogen
Chair:
G P Das (Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India)
Location: VMCC 13
16:00
Gavin Walker (University o Nottingham, UK)
Solid state hydrogen storage for our future energy systems

ABSTRACT. Hydrogen is a versatile energy carrier, which can be generated from a number of sources, including renewable energy, fossil fuels and nuclear. Hyundai and Toyota have production ready hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (HFCEV) available today, with other manufacturers due to launch HFCEV over the next few years. This poses a challenge to establish a fuelling infrastructure for these vehicles and opens up the question of where will the extra hydrogen come from. Other opportunities for hydrogen technologies include battery rechargers, longer term energy storage for microgrids and for power-to-gas grid stabilisation. This talk will give an overview of hydrogen technologies, the new opportunities and discuss some of the challenges to bringing these technologies to the market. A challenge for hydrogen systems is a low pressure, compact storage technology. Solid state storage of hydrogen in metal hydrides or complex hydrides can halve the volume needed for storage in comparison to 700 bar pressure vessels and operate below 40 bar. The design and use of solid state hydrogen stores will be discussed.

16:30
Vivekanand Swami (Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune, India)
Kv Harishankar (Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune, India)
Prashant Kulkarni (Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune, India)
Effective Inhibition of Hydrogen Flames for Safe Hydrogen Handling & Storage

ABSTRACT. Hydrogen being a valuable industrial chemical is a potential energy carrier. It has the capability to replace conventional energy sources. However, the safety concerns of hydrogen handling and storage are quite high. Inhibition of hydrogen combustion radicals and thereby the suppression of flame produced by using various chemical inhibitors is a useful tool for safe hydrogen storage and handling. Experimental studies were conducted on hydrogen-air mixtures in the presence of different halogenated compounds such as ethyl bromide, n-propyl bromide and dibromomethane at equivalence ratio (Ø) 1 and various operating conditions. A significant reduction in laminar flame speed of hydrogen-air mixtures, in the presence of the chemical inhibitors, was evident from the results. The inhibition efficiency of these compounds increases in the order of ethyl bromide < dibromomethane < propyl bromide. The addition of various halogenated compounds also had an effect on ignition delay. The total suppression of hydrogen flammability was observed by individual addition of 12% propyl bromide, 17% ethyl bromide, and 19% dibromomethane to the hydrogen-air mixture. The results demonstrate the usefulness of inhibition of hydrogen combustion by these inhibitors and their potential application in safe hydrogen handling.

16:45
Tapas K Das (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India)
Seemita Banerjee (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India)
V Sudarsan (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India)
Hydrogen Storage and Spillover Effect in Pd Dispersed Reduced Graphene Oxide

ABSTRACT. In the present paper graphene has been prepared by chemical reduction of graphene oxide. Pd nanoparticles have been dispersed by three different routes. Based on Raman and TG-DTA studies it is inferred that the Pd nanoparticles dispersed by reverse micro emulsion route interact more with the reduced graphene oxide support. Hydrogen absorption studies show that though at room temperature Pd nanoparticles helps in spillover of hydrogen and improve hydrogen storage capacity, at lower temperature spillover does not occurs.

17:00
Paramita Banerjee (Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India)
Biswarup Pathak (Indian Institute of Technology, Indore, India)
G. P Das (Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India)
Li Functionalized Hydrogenated h-BN Sheet: A Promising Candidate for Efficient Hydrogen Storage

ABSTRACT. The hydrogen storage efficiency of hydrogenated hexagonal boron nitride sheet (BHNH chair conformer) have been explored after functionalizing with Li atom by using first principles density functional approach. One of the hydrogen atoms from both B and N sides of a 3x3 corrugated BHNH sheet have been replaced by a Li atom consecutively. The binding energy of the Li atom with this BHNH sheet on both B and N sides being significantly higher compared to the Li bulk’s cohesive energy (~1.63 eV), any possibility of cluster formation between Li atoms is ruled out. Ab-initio Molecular Dynamics (AIMD) simulation confirms the stability of this Li doped BHNH sheet upto 400K. While binding with the BHNH sheet, each Li atoms become cationic and adsorb maximum four H2 molecules with desired binding energy (~0.18-0.32 eV/H2 molecule) for hydrogen storage. When Li atoms are doped on both B and N sides simultaneously, the system yields a gravimetric density of hydrogen ~6 wt %. AIMD simulation reveals the complete dehydrogenation from this system at ~400K, thereby establishing the suitability of this system from the point of view of efficient hydrogen storage.

17:15
Mathan E Kumar (SRM Research Institute, SRM University, India)
Ranjit Thapa (SRM Research Institute, SRM University, India)
Sinthika Selvaraj (SRM University, India)
First Principles calcultion for hydrogen adsorption on electron(n) doped surfaces: Bond exchange mechanism

ABSTRACT. To use the hydrogen energy more efficiently, the storage of hydrogen as molecule (H2) or as atom (H) with high gravimetric and volumetric ratio is the most vital step. Moreover the reversibility and operating temperature are also considered as essential parameters for the commercial use of hydrogen energy. H2 storage via physical adsorption is fully reversible and follows fast kinetics in comparison to the chemically bonded H atom, which usually needs high release temperatures. The spillover mechanism has been suggested, in which the hydrogen molecule is activated using metal based catalyst and then it is possible to distribute the hydrogen atom over the graphene surfaces. The spillover mechanism is quite different from the physical and chemical adsorption mechanism. Using first principle analysis it has been found that the migration of the H atoms on the surface requires high energy. To overcome this problem the use of secondary catalyst has been proposed [1, 2]. Recently we introduce the bond exchange mechanism using secondary catalyst for spillover of H atoms [2, 3].

In our work, we propose to modify the electronic structure of boron nitride and silicon carbide monolayer via substitutional doping(Carbon, Oxygen and Nitrogen atom) in order to convert them to suitable hydrogen storage materials, even though such materials are highly inert in their pristine forms. We extensively study the H2 interaction with pure and doped surfaces. We found that there is a probability of H2 dissociation on doped surface with low activation energy barrier. However, we prove that the migration of the dissociated hydrogen atom along the doped and pure surfaces is unfavorable by its own. We addressed issue of kinetics for H atom on the surface, which helps experimentalist to move further [4,5]. We propose that secondary mediators such as borane (BH3) and gallane (GaH3) can help in the migration of H atom along the surface with very low barrier energy via bond exchange spillover mechanism (explain in Figure 1). Also it has been noted that the bond exchange mechanism was not helpful in migrating the H atom from a site to its adjacent sites, since the distance between the two given sites is not long enough for the molecule to swap the atoms.

17:30
Seemita Banerjee (BARC, India)
Key Challenges and Recent Progresses in Metal and Carbon based Hydrogen Storage Materials

ABSTRACT. Hydrogen economy is proposed to solve the ill effects of hydrocarbon fuels in transportation, and other end-use applications, where carbon- oxides are released into the atmosphere. The storage of hydrogen is the biggest challenge for hydrogen economy as the storage medium must meet the requirements of high gravimetric and volumetric density, fast kinetics, and favorable thermodynamics [1]. Although molecular hydrogen has very high energy density on mass basis at ambient conditions, but it has very low energy density by volume. Pressurization of hydrogen gas demands other forms of energy as well as it brings complications in terms of safety aspects. Cryogenic storage of hydrogen offers many advantages for mobile applications in virtue of its high storage density, but boil-off gas losses need to be minimised further. Solid-state materials offer a practical alternative where hydrogen is stored within a solid matrix, and a great deal of effort has been devoted to find efficient solid state hydrogen storage materials. Alloys based on Ti-V-Fe, Ti-V-Cr and Ti-V-Zr systems will be discussed in detail and along with their hydrogen storage capacities, pressure composition isotherms, and critical thermodynamic and kinetic properties [2]. Among metal hydrides, Magnesium-based systems are considered to be very promising hydrogen storage materials because of their low cost and high hydrogen storage capacity (7.66 wt % theoretically), which is sufficiently high for onboard hydrogen storage. But the problems with magnesium are high thermal stability of the magnesium hydride and its slow kinetics of hydrogen absorption and desorption. Transition metal doping can accelerate the hydrogen absorption capacity and from our finding it is established that Mg shows the most effective hydrogenation behavior when V and Ni are co-doped into the Mg surface. Also 40 % reduction of hydrogen dissociation barrier has been reported for hydrogen adsorption on Ti doped Mg55 cluster compared to Mg surface. Carbon based materials have been taken up as adsorbents due to its high specific surface area, highly porous structure [3, 4]. For that multiwalled carbon nanotubes was synthesized and modified with Pd doping by different routes and the results show many fold increase in hydrogen storage capacities. By varying doping method the extent of Pd dispersion in CNTs can be controlled and the experimental output also gives the direct evidence of spillover mechanism occurring in Pd-CNT system. Apart from carbon nanotubes, synthesis, characterization, modification of other carbon based systems like graphene, porous carbon and activated carbons for hydrogen storage applications will be discussed [5, 6].

References

  1. L. Schlappbach, A. Zuttel, Nature, 414 (2001) 414.
  2. Asheesh Kumar, Seemita Banerjee, C.G.S. Pillai, S.R. Bharadwaj, Int. J. of Hydrogen Energy, 38, (2013) 13335.
  3. Seemita Banerjee, C. G. S. Pillai, and C. Majumder, J. Phys. Chem. C, 113, (2009) 10574.
  4. Seemita Banerjee, C.G.S. Pillai, C. Majumder, Int. J. of Hydrogen Energy, 35 (2010) 2344.
  5. Tapas Das, Seemita Banerjee, Kinshuk Dasgupta, J. B. Joshi and V. Sudarsan, RSC Advances, 5 (2015) 41468.
  6. Seemita Banerjee, Kinshuk Dasgupta, Asheesh Kumar, Priyanka Ruz, B. Vishwanadh, J.B. Joshi, V. Sudarsan, Int. J. of Hydrogen Energy, 40 (2015) 3268.
16:00-18:00 Session Industry Invited
Chair:
Prakash Ghosh (IIT Bombay, India)
Location: VMCC 15
16:00
J. Harper (Ametek, UK, UK)
Battery Diagnostic Tool Development: Impedance Spectroscopy for State of Charge and State of Health Estimation.

ABSTRACT. A recent study of the requirements of the end users of advanced batteries has shown a desire for fast, reliable and repeatable methods of determining the State of Charge and State of Health of batteries. 1 No where more is this required than in the Automotive sector. Conversations with leading car manufacturers in Europe have highlighted the scale of the problem. It is estimated that of the new car warranty repairs due to reported battery failure, 70% are subsequently shown to be ‘false positive’ reading from the test equipment.

Whist EIS for battery diagnostics2 is not a new concept, the advent of new, faster digital instrumentation and development of battery models is allowing researchers to revisit and build upon the experiences of past developments.3

The talk with focus on speed of measurement using MultiSine / FFT Impedance technique and analysis and modelling of Impedance data using a simplified two time constant model. In addition, we will discuss the commercial implications of an on-board Impedance Analyzers for automotive applications and dispel some cost concerns that are prevalent in the literature. A simple correlation of the SoH of the battery versus the time constant  of the electrode reaction is shown and demonstrates the efficacy of the approach.

References

  1. Internal AMETEK marketing report, Jun 2015
  2. A. J. Salkind, C. Fennie, P. Singh, T. Atwater, and D. E. Reisner,“Determination of state-of-charge and state-of-health of batteries by fuzzy logic methodology,” Journal of Power Sources vol.80, no. 1, pp. 293–300, 1999.
  3. Howey DA, Yufit V, Mitcheson PD, Offer GJ, Brandon NP, Impedance measurement for advanced battery management systems, EVS 27, Barcelona, Spain, November 17-20, 2013 
16:30
Herve Bonin (Biologic, France)
Advanced Analysis Tools & Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy : Overview for Electrochemical Energy Storage Deceives

ABSTRACT. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) has become established as one of the most popular analytical tools in material science research specially for energy storage device like batteries, fuel cell and super capacitor. The other advanced analysis tools like Differential Capacity Analysis (DCA) and  Differential Coulometry Spectroscopy (DCS) and Coulomic Efficiency Determination fit (CED) are playing an important role for the Battery life cycle determination.

17:00
Kumaravel Jothi (Semyung Enterprises India Pvt. Ltd., India)
Advanced Equipments & Facilities for Lithium Ion Battery Manufacturing

ABSTRACT. Presentation on the advanced equipments with proven technology for basic R&D, Pilot Scale & Mass Production of Lithium Ion Batteries ( Coin Cell, 18650 type cells, Pouch Cells & Prismatic Cells) and facilities like Glove Box, Dry Room, Cell Tester (Cycler) that can be supplied by Semyung.

17:30
Carl Zeiss (Carl Zeiss Inc., India)
TBA - Invited I2
16:00-18:00 Session Energy Storage 2
Chair:
Suddhasatwa Basu (IIT Delhi, India)
Location: VMCC 21
16:00
Mitchell Anstey (Sandia National Labs, USA)
Development and Spectroelectrochemistry of Redox Non-Innocent Flow Battery Electrolytes

ABSTRACT. Consumption of energy at the grid scale often does not coincide with the periodic and transient nature of alternative energies. Additionally, the current grid structure forces traditional power plants to operate above the projected demand throughout the day. The best solution to these problems is grid-scale energy storage, and redox flow batteries are a promising option. Decoupling power from storage, they offer flexibility that other sources do not. However, suitable chemistries in solutions with a wide electrochemical window are still needed. One system recently developed uses the property of redox non-innocence to create stable and electrochemically-diverse metal-based species. This talk will highlight the recent results of electrolyte development based on transition metal and main group element complexes and our new Raman-based spectroelectrochemical analysis for battery health and diagnostics.

16:30
Mohanapriya K (Institute of Chemical Technology, India)
Neetu Jha (Institute of Chemical Technology, India)
Simple and low cost production of wrinkled graphene sheets for supercapacitor electrodes

ABSTRACT. Graphene is a promising electrode material for supercapacitor application because of its large surface area and excellent conductivity. The theoretical value of specific capacitance has not been achieved in a real supercapacitor electrode due to the high tendency for graphene sheets to re-stack together. This nature of graphene has become a critical challenge to utilise the graphene’s large surface area. To overcome this problem wrinkled graphene sheets are synthesized in a very simple method. At first, graphene oxide was synthesized by simplified Hummer’s method and reduced under wax candle flame. To achieve the wrinkled structure, the as prepared graphene solution was frozen with liquid nitrogen and kept in freezer overnight, finally allowed to melt at room temperature and dried. The obtained wrinkled flame reduced graphene oxide sheets were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Bruner-Emmitt-Teller (BET) surface area and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic (FTIR) techniques. Charge storage measurements have been performed using electrochemical workstation. The obtained specific capacitance values are 213 F/g for as prepared graphene sheets (FRGO) and 290 F/g for wrinkled graphene (C-FRGO) sheets at 1 A/g current density. The energy density values of 7.4 and 10.1 Wh/Kg are obtained for FRGO and C-FRGO respectively. The stability of these electrodes was studied up to 500 cycles and it shows 100% retention. These excellent electrochemical properties proved that wrinkled graphene sheets are potential future supercapacitor electrodes.

16:45
Rakesh . (IITMadras, India)
Dr.Kothandaraman R (IITMadras, India)
Prof.Varadaraju U. V (IITMadras, India)
A novel AgP2 as anode material for sodium -ion rechargeable batteries

ABSTRACT. Na-ion batteries would be interesting for the abundance and very low cost systems for grid storage, which could make renewable energy source of a sodium ion battery. Sodium can form alloy with many metallic elements such as Sb, Sn, P, Pb, Ge and the calculated theoretical specific capacities are 847(Na15Sn4), 660(Na3Sb), 484(Na15Pb4) , 2596(Na3P) mAh/g respectively, [1] but with more than 300% Volume expansion. The expansion ratio for Sodium based anode materials is more serious than Lithium based anode materials due to the bigger size of Na+ ions leading to poor cycle life. The capacity fade of alloy-based negative electrodes is very sensitive to the choice of binder [2]. However, In this present work we have identified AgP2 is a good anode material, this shows discharge behaviours at around 1.0V vs. Na+/Na. Fig.1shows the powder XRD of AgP2, which matches with the powder XRD pattern documented in JCPDS (NO-18-1185). As part of this list, charge-discharge voltage profile, Na- composition profile, structure change if any as function of Na ion insertion - deinsertion will be studied.

17:00
Vinod Kumar Singh (IIT Indore, India)
E. Anil Kumar (IIT Indore, India)
Comparative Studies on CO2 Adsorption Isotherms by Solid Adsorbents

ABSTRACT. In this work, the CO2 adsorption isotherms of activated carbon (Norit type RB3 steam activated rod) and Zeolite 5A are studied at different temperatures (298 K, 308 K, 318 K and 338 K) and pressures (0-30 bar) by a Sievert’s type experimental setup. Experimental data of CO2 adsorption isotherms on adsorbents are modelled using Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. Coefficient of correlation and normalized standard deviation are estimated, which revealed that the Freundlich isotherm model is well suited with the experimental data of CO2 adsorption isotherms than Langmuir model. The thermodynamic parameters are estimated and these parameters indicated that the adsorption process is spontaneous, exothermic and physisorption in nature. Isosteric heat of adsorption and limiting heat of adsorption are calculated using the Clausius-Clapeyron and Vant’ Hoff equations respectively. The present study provides the necessary thermodynamic data required for the design of CO2 adsorption system using the solid adsorbents activated carbon and zeolite 5A.

17:15
Lakshmi Anisha Bhimanapati (VIT University, Vellore, India)
Umashankar S (VIT university, India)
Sonal Gaurav (VIT University, India)
Chirag Birla (VIT University, India)
Aman Lamba (Vellore Institute of Technology, India)
Investigations and Analysis of PV - battery based microgrid Energy Management System

ABSTRACT. Solar Energy is the most abundant form of renewable energy. Its usage has increased considerably in recent times as it has become more feasible and convenient form of energy. Power electronics has played a major in this area [1-2].This paper deals with the management of Energy Storage System (ESS) connected in a microgrid with a PV array and regulate the battery charge, hold and discharge operations using DC-DC bidirectional converter based on the requirement of the Load. The PV array along with the battery and load is simulated for various conditions such as PV supplying the load and charging the battery, PV supplying only the load, battery supplying the load and PV-battery both supplying the load. The output parameters like voltage, current and power graphs are plotted and analyzed for each condition. The entire paper is simulated in Matlab Simulink.

17:30
M.M. Shaijumon (IISER, Trivandrum, India)
Graphene-based Hybrid Nanostructured Materials for Energy Storage

ABSTRACT. Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) have been at the forefront of energy storage technologies for a range of portable device applications over the past couple of decades and have been recently looked at to meet the on-board energy requirements in vehicular applications. Hence there is great interest in developing multifunctional hybrid nanostructured materials for such high performance energy storage devices.1 Novel architectures of hybrid nanomaterials have been shown to improve the device performances. Carbon based nanomaterials, owing to its high surface area and good conductivity properties, have been studied as electrodes for supercapacitors2,3 and Li-ion batteries. Graphene/metal oxides nanohybrids have been recently explored as efficient electrodes for Li-ion battery. In this talk, some of our recent results on graphene-based hybrid nanostructures4 and their application as electrodes for lithium ion battery, will be presented. In addition, our recent efforts on the design and synthesis of organic based electrodes for Na-ion battery5 will also be presented.

References:

  1. A.L.M. Reddy, S. Gowda, M.M. Shaijumon and P.M. Ajayan, ' Adv. Mater. 24, 5045-5064 (2012)
  2. P. Simon, Y. Gogotsi, Nat. Mater. 7, 845-854 (2008)
  3. Y. Huang, J. Liang and Y. Chen, Small, 8, 1805-1834 (2012)
  4. G. Binitha, AG. Ashish, D. Ramasubramonian, P. Manikandan and M. M. Shaijumon Adv. Mater. Interfaces, DOI: 10.1002/admi.201500419 (2015)
  5. Harish Banda, Dijo Damien, K. Nagarajan, Mahesh Hariharan and M. M. Shaijumon, J. Mater. Chem. A 3, 10453-10458 (2015)

 

16:00-18:00 Session ES-IPME1
Chair:
Neeraj Sharma (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia)
Location: VMCC 22
16:00
Gautam Yadama (WUStL, USA)
Factors driving Sustained Adoption of Clean Energy Systems

ABSTRACT. The ability to bring about adoption and sustained use of distributed solar microgrid technology depends on a set of robust core interventions combined with adaptable implementation strategies to allow for customization to suit local populations.  There is an urgent need to create measures and evaluate the dissemination, implementation, and fidelity of solar microgrid interventions designed to provide reliable, clean, and renewable energy, fundamental for improving rural lives in India. How do we understand the pathways through which distributed solar micro grids produce social, economic, livelihood, health, and quality of life impacts?  What is the nature of research we must do to understand and explain variations across communities in their extent of adoption, and intensive use solar and other microgrids? How do we understand factors that enable and hinder sustained adoption and use microgrid technologies by the rural poor so we may develop more suitable, acceptable, and effective interventions focused on bolstering social, health, economic, livelihood, and quality of life outcomes?  These and other factors will be discussed in a framework synthesizing the need for greater attention to dissemination and implementation and system science to understand widespread uptake of solar microgrid technologies.

16:30
Baishali Talukdar (Department of Energy, Tezpur University, India)
Sadhan Mahapatra (Department of Energy, Tezpur University, India)
Nabin Sarmah (Department of Energy, Tezpur University, India)
A comparative study of grid-connected photovoltaic systems in four different locations of India

ABSTRACT. This study presents a comparative analysis of 100 kWP grid-connected photovoltaic systems for four different geographical locations of India viz. Ahmedabad, Chennai, Jodhpur and Tezpur using PVsyst simulation tool. The simulation is performed by considering three different module technologies i.e. mono-crystalline silicon, poly-crystalline silicon and thin film-CdTe. The total energy generated by the PV systems, Performance Ratio of the systems and the total system losses due to various factors are estimated. The PV system based at Tezpur is found to have highest performance ratio in compare to the other three locations even though lowest annual energy output for all the module technologies due to low solar radiation. It is observed from the simulated results that CdTe modules perform better for all the four locations which are mainly because of low irradiance and temperature loss in CdTe modules than mono-Si and poly-Si module technologies. It also can be concluded from the study that, though solar radiation is relatively lower in North Eastern part of India, but as the average ambient temperature is low, performance ratio is better than many other locations of India.

16:45
Md Reyaz Arif (Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India)
Naiem Akhtar (Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India)
Comparison of the performance of box type solar cookers -- when the cooking pot is kept directly on the absorber plate and when raised using lugs: an experimental study

ABSTRACT. This paper addresses the issue of raising the cooking pots from the absorber plate inside the box type solar cooker using lugs as reported in the literature by Narasimha Rao and Subramanyam [1]. They have recommended that raising the cooking pots above the absorber plate instead of putting them directly on the absorber surface. In their work, as can be seen in Fig. 1, they have used a booster mirror and both the cooking vessels are kept in the same cooker. A better method would be to use two identical solar cookers and in one cooker the cooking pot should be kept directly on the absorber plate while in the other cooker the cooking pot should be raised from the absorber plate using lugs. In the present work a comparative experimental study is carried out to observe the effect of raising cooking pots from the absorber plate using lugs on the performance of box type solar cooker. For this, two box type solar cookers of identical shape, size and thermal performance have been used. In one cooker the cooking pot is kept directly on the absorber plate while in the other cooker the cooking pot is raised from the absorber plate using lugs. The height of the lugs is varied from 1 mm to 9 mm. It is found from the experimental study that raising the vessel by using lugs will not help in improving the performance of the solar cooker, rather, it will reduce the heat transfer from the absorber plate to the cooking vessel. Hence, it is recommended that the cooking vessel should be put directly on the absorber surface instead of raising the vessel from the absorber plate using lugs.

17:00
Narinder Kumar (NIT, Kurukshetra, India)
Ashwani Kumar (NIT, Kurukshetra, India)
Power Quality and Economic Assessment of DG Penetration in Distorted Distribution Systems

ABSTRACT. Integration of distributed energy resources with distribution systems are presenting new challenges in terms of quality and reliability of supply, as well as in the optimal utilization of available resources in competitive electricity markets. Increasing penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) in the recent decades is leading to a significant change in how the present distribution systems are planned and regulated. Furthermore, presence of current and voltage harmonics in the DG resources necessitates a detailed mathematical analysis of integrating such resources with distorted distribution systems. In this research paper, a comprehensive load flow analysis of unbalanced and distorted distribution systems has been attempted by integrating various DG resources. Main contributions of this paper are: (i) Flow of fundamental and distortion power due to linear and non-linear DG operation in distorted distribution systems. (ii) Assessment of harmonic amplification due to distorted substation/ DG voltage. (iii) Economic Assessment of total energy consumption for different harmonic orders. Load flow results are obtained with IEEE-13 bus unbalanced system and IEEE-69 bus system.

17:15
Sameer Patel (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
Anna Leavey (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
Pratim Biswas (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
A Model for Cost-Benefit Analysis of Cooking Fuel Alternatives: Utility and Policy Implications

ABSTRACT. Nearly half of the world’s population does not have access to cleaner cooking fuels, and this is attributed to several things including the lack of resources (fuel), infrastructure (production and distribution), purchasing power (poverty), relevant policies, and a combination of these reasons. A household’s fuel choice aims to minimize cost and maximize benefit, both of which are intricate functions of many factors. The factors influencing a household’s fuel preference, and how manipulating these factors such as subsidies, improved distribution networks and user awareness will affect fuel preference is reported. A model for cost-benefit analysis (CBA) from a rural Indian household perspective was developed to study the fuel preferences of rural Indian households. Seven cooking fuels (biomass (wood and crop residue), dung, charcoal, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), biogas, kerosene and electricity) were ranked in order of household preference. Various scenarios were considered to demonstrate the sensitivity of fuel preference to multiple factors such as subsidies and improvement in cooking technology. Results obtained from the model demonstrated strong agreement with the current fuel usage pattern in rural India. The model was then applied to compare traditional cookstoves (TCS) to non-subsidized improved cookstoves (ICS). The benefit-to-cost ratio of solid fuels when used in ICS was lower than that when used in TCS. A similar trend was observed for fully-subsidized ICS; indicating that price is not the only obstacle to the adoption of an ICS. Sensitivity analysis was performed to demonstrate the utility of this CBA model in framing policies to promote fuel transition in rural India. Although providing subsidies on LPG and electricity can make these cleaner fuels an attractive option, biomass will remain a household’s preferred fuel unless distribution networks and infrastructure is developed to ensure their uninterrupted supply and accessibility. The results obtained in this study demonstrated the critical features governing fuel selection and how these may be manipulated to encourage adoption of cleaner fuels and cooking technologies. Though this work focused on rural India, this model used could be easily translated to both the rural and urban populations of other countries with only minor modifications to suit the demographics, geography, market conditions and policies of that country.

17:30
Avijit Ghosh (CSIR-CENTRAL GLASS & CERAMIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE, India)
Surajit Gupta (CSIR-CENTRAL GLASS & CERAMIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE, India)
Arup Ghosh (CSIR-CENTRAL GLASS & CERAMIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE, India)
Subhasis Neogi (JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY, India)
Preservation of Sand and Building Energy Conservation

ABSTRACT. Sand, being one of the conventional constituent of Concrete, and also the non-renewable soft mineral, is being mined mindlessly across the Globe. It is estimated that by 2030, 40.8% of Indian population shall be living under Urban environment , and huge no. of dwelling units would be required. Sand is an integral part of building construction. The energy consumed by building sector is around 40% of global energy use. HVAC load is the major contributor in overall energy profile in buildings situated under Hot and Humid climatic zones in tropical countries. Solar heat gain is resulted through building envelope, and the conventional concrete and plastered masonry surfaces contribute significantly to the same. An experimental work has been carried out to produce sustainable energy efficient concrete with Portland Pozzolana Cement, Sand, Coal Ash from Thermal Power Plant, Stone aggregate and water. Test samples are prepared with reducing quantities of Sand and increasing quantities of Coal Ash for a Design Mix Concrete of Grade M-20. While characteristic strength of concrete could be achieved with replacement of Sand by Coal Ash, thermal conductivity value of concrete is reduced, while compared with normal concrete of same Mix.

17:45
Deepak Tyagi (NIT Kurukshetra, India)
Shailendra Singh (IIT (BHU), India)
Ashwani Kumar (NIT Kurukshetra, India)
Saurabh Chanana (NIT Kurukshetra, India)
Load Shedding in Deregulated Environment and Impact of Photovoltaic System with SMES

ABSTRACT. With the continuous increase in load the frequency of the system goes on decreasing and it reaches to its minimum allowable value. After further increase in load will results more frequent drop, causing in the need of LOAD SHEDDING. To avoid load shedding and control of frequency of the systems a novel approach has been presented in this paper. Paper includes modeling of SMES with solar PV array for frequency control of three areas interconnected thermal system in deregulated environment. A comparative analysis of different load frequency control scheme such as: i) Using conventional integral controller ii) Using PID controller, iii) Using additional sources of energy (PV with SMES) on the basis of load to be shed have been discussed. The effects of bilateral contracts on the dynamics of a system including three areas, each of which consisting of two GENCOS and two Discos has been discussed. A case study of contract violation of DISCO‘s also being incorporated. For all the three strategies the critical load at which frequency of the areas tries to go below minimum allowable range also has been too calculated. With the help of MATLAB software, using Simulink results have been obtained. From the comparison results indicates that on using third strategy (with additional sources) is increasing the efficiency of the system. When using system with PID controller and additional sources, frequency of the system doesn’t go below minimum allowable range and there is requirement of LOAD SHEDDING has been eliminated.

16:00-18:00 Session MOEC 2
Chair:
Rajendra Nath Basu (Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI), India)
Location: VMCC 33
16:00
Chin Pan (National Tsinghua University, Taiwan)
Using Sea Water as an Alternative Emergency Coolant to Enhance Nuclear Safety

ABSTRACT. global worming emissions. Enhancement of nuclear safety is one of the major issues to broaden the acceptance of nuclear power. There are many nuclear power plants in the world locate at sea coast using sea water as the cooling water for the condenser. In a Fukushima like accident, sea water may be used as an alternative emergency coolant. This talk will present some of our recent studies on the quenching of two metallic spheres, i.e., stainless steel 304 and zircaloy-702, respectively, and a cylindrical copper rod with an internal heater, to simulate the decay heat generated by the nuclear fuel rod after the power plant shutdown, in natural sea water and compared with that in de-ionized water. Quenching refers to a rapid cooling process by exposing a hot object to a much cooler liquid. The phenomenon plays an important part for the safety of a nuclear power plant. Through the visualization using a high speed video camera, it is revealed that, in de-ionized water, stable vapor film around the sphere with temperature higher than the so-called Leidenfrost temperature is not formed promptly as the traditional view, but it is formed through the coalescence of small bubbles nucleated at ultra-high surface temperatures. The present study reveals that such bubble nucleation remains during almost the entire quenching process in sea water resulting in much more rapid quenching in natural sea water than that in de-ionized water.  Film boiling in sea water at low temperatures is suppressed due to the zeta-potential effect between heated surface and sea water. The critical heat flux resulted is also much higher with quenching in natural sea water than that in de-ionized water. The rapid quenching in natural sea water demonstrates the beneficial side of using natural sea water as an alternative emergency coolant to enhance the safety of a nuclear power plant.

16:30
Rushikesh Kekare (Sardar Patel College of Enginnering, India)
Ram Maurya (Sardar Patel College of Enginnering, India)
Development of Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Characteristics for a Plate Type Offset-Fin Compact Heat Exchanger using Numerical Investigation Methodology

ABSTRACT. Present investigation deals with a compact plate type offset fin heat exchanger which is mostly used as inter-cooler in heavy duty vehicles. Current practice of designing such system is purely based on trial and error with little experimental investigation on generic arrangement of fins. A customized system needs exhaustive experimentation to characterize the system in terms of pressure drop and heat transfer. The objective of the current investigation is to develop a simple numerical approach to accelerate the investigation using numerical tools. Simultaneously it aims at developing correlations to predict heat transfer and pressure drop of two flow streams for a compact heat exchanger of size 425mm×492mm×48mm whose alternate stacks has offset and plain rectangular fin arrangement. Work has been executed using commercial software (ANSYS Fluent) under flow conditions. Investigation reveals a number of interesting results which is useful to make the device more efficient in terms of its performance.

16:45
Rajesh Kumar (IIT Jodhpur, India)
Ajoy K Saha (IIT Jodhpur, India)
Belal Usmani (IIT Jodhpur, India)
Ambesh Dixit (IIT Jodhpur, India)
Optimization and structure-property correlation of black chrome solar selective coating on Copper and Nickel plated copper substrates

ABSTRACT. We used two electrode electrodeposition technique to optimize the black chrome solar selective coating on copper and nickel plated copper substrates. The process was optimized and optimal absorptivity ~ 0.85 and emissivity ~ 0.4 was achieved for black chrome coatings on copper substrates. The addition of nickel metal layer prior to black chrome on copper substrate resulted into lower emissivity ~ 0.2 and enhanced absorptivity. The electrochemical bath and process conditions were optimized for the best solar thermal response. The structure-property correlations were investigated to understand the solar thermal response for these black chrome solar selective coatings.

17:00
Rima Biswas (IIT Guwahati, India)
Pallab Ghosh (IIT Guwahati, India)
Musharaf Ali (BARC Mumbai, India)
Tamal Banerjee (Department of Chemical Engineering, India)
Insights into the Interaction Energy for Cs+–Crown Ether complex by Molecular Dynamics Simulations

ABSTRACT. We report the interaction energies between the individual complexing species i.e. crown ether and Cs+ metal ion. Cesium is a major fission product in spent nuclear wastes. Crown ethers are usually used for the removal of Cs+ ion from nuclear waste solution.Thereafter to understand the mechanism of complexation and the behavior of crown ether ligand, crown ether (CE) molecules and Cs+NO3- ions were inserted randomly in the Ionic Liquid-water biphasic system. It was observed that the interaction energies during initial stages of the simulation were close to zero suggesting that the Cs+ cation is not present in the crown ether. With the formation of Cs+–CE complex is was evident that the electrostatic interactions are particularly attractive in nature and are crucial in realizing complexation.

17:15
Pratibha Biswal (IIT Madras, India)
Tanmay Basak (IIT Madras, India)
Investigation of thermal efficiency via entropy generation analysis within cavities with curved walls subjected to differential/Rayleigh-Benard heating

ABSTRACT. The computational study of natural convection within enclosures with curved (concave/convex) walls (curved side walls or top and bottom walls) is carried out via entropy generation analysis. Two heating strategies are considered such as: (a) differential and (b) Rayleigh-Benard heating. The numerical simulation has been carried out at Prandtl numbers, Pr=0.7 for various Rayleigh numbers (10^3 ≤ Ra ≤ 10^5) with different wall curvatures. A comparative study of the heating strategies is carried out in detail for a number of test cases with different wall curvatures. Finally, the optimal situation is recommended based on the less entropy production and and high heating effect.

17:30
Appasaheb Raul (Sardar Patel College of Engineering, India)
Mr. Balwant Bhasme (Sardar Patel College of Engineering, India)
Dr. R Maurya (Sardar Patel College of Engineering, India)
A Numerical investigation of flow maldistribution in inlet header configuration ofPlate fin heat exchanger.

ABSTRACT. Extended abstract is attached in paper uploads.

17:45
Mohammad Khan (amu, India)
Danish Khan (amu, India)
Nishat Khan (amu, India)
Suhail Sabir (amu, India)
Shaaikh Ziauddin (IIT Delhi, India)
Energy Recovery during Biodegradation of an Azo-dye in Microbial Fuel Cell

ABSTRACT. Lately, microbial fuel cells have earned a lot of attention as an energy producing source due to continuously depleting non-renewable sources of energy. Microbial fuel cell is a bio-electrochemical device that convert chemical into electrical energy using microbes as catalyst. In the near future, the technology can evolve to serve the purpose of continuous energy production. MFC can utilise different substrates like glucose, acetate, lactate, waste water etc. as carbon source for microbes. At present, current and power production is relatively low but it is expected that with the advancement in technology through improved knowledge, the performance of this system can be enhanced. We conducted the anaerobic followed by aerobic treatment of a complex azo dye reactive orange 16 (RO 16) using acetate as the substrate. The main focus of this work was to study the degradation rate and the energy generation from complex organic matter and we obtained satisfactory results. For that, different concentrations of RO 16 were fed to a singled chambered microbial fuel cell (SMFC) coupled with an aerobic post treatment process for complete removal of azo-dyes and its degradation products. The UV/VIS data showed more than 90% removal of dye colour i.e. decolourization with in the first week of experiment. The COD removal efficiency obtained was also quite high upto 90%. GC/MS data revealed that RO 16 was first converted to aromatic amines in SMFC which were further transformed in to phthalic acid and finally to benzoic acid in the aerobic step. The experiment was continued for the time period of two months and a continuous current production was recorded during the period. The maximum power density achieved was 115 mW/m2. Although the columbic efficiency was quite low in the range of 1.88-3.4%, which implies reduced electron transfer rate from microbes to the electrode due to various kinds of electron losses (ohmic losses, concentration losses etc). We also studied electrode surface characteristics by SEM analysis. To study the effect of substrate on the electron transfer from substrate to anode and effect of biofilm on anode, cyclic voltammetry (CV) was also performed. MFC is a relatively new approach of waste water treatment. If in the near future, the energy recovery from such systems can be increased, the technology has the potential to become a reliable method of waste treatment and thus generating energy from it compensating the wastewater treatment plant operating cost and merging the two crucial demand of time making them more affordable for developing nations.

18:00-20:00 Session Poster 1
Chair:
Sankara Sarma Tatiparti (IIT Bombay, India)
Location: VMCC Foyer
18:00
Ronak Shah (Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, India)
P Srinivasan (Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, India)
Hybrid Photovoltaic and Solar Thermal Systems (PVT): performance Simulation and Experimental Validation

ABSTRACT. Continuous Solar irradiation on the Photovoltaic panel causes its temperature to increase, resulting in reduced efficiency. The present paper focuses on improving the efficiency of the photovoltaic panel through the use of hybrid Photovoltaic-Thermal (PV-T) system. Water is used as the coolant in the cooling channel, flowing through the copper tubing provided below the photovoltaic panel, where the temperature is maximum. The thermal energy extracted in the process can be harnessed in several ways, improving the overall efficiency of the system. A theoretical model was prepared using COMSOL® multi-physics. The results achieved in the experimental set-up are quantified. As per the experimentation carried on the photovoltaic panel, an average temperature of 303.38K at Standard Test Condition (STC) was achieved through cooling, while the temperature of the panel without cooling rose up to 333.15K in environmental conditions, thus, improving the efficiency of the photovoltaic panel. The paper later applies the idea to an entire solar power plant to improve the overall efficiency of the power plant, by cooling the photovoltaic panel as well as generate hot water as its by-product.

18:00
Suman Kushwaha (iit madras, India)
Sudip Mandal (iit madras, India)
Kothandaraman Ramanujam (iit madras, India)
Non-precious metal based counter electrodes for dye sensitized solar cell

ABSTRACT. Commonly, platinum based counter electrode is used in Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). As we know, the counter electrodes play an important role in DSSC catalyzing the reduction of I3− to I− in DSSC. Iodine reduction rate at counter electrode should be many fold higher in comparison to the back reaction (recombination) that happens at the photoanode for effectively harnessing the electrons injected into the conducting band of TiO2. In this study, we will demonstrate a non-precious metal catalyst (NPM), which is derived from melamine as efficient counter electrode with the performance comparable to platinum catalyst. DSSCs assembled with this NPM catalyst is analyzed using IV curve, cyclic voltammogram, impedance analysis and Intensity modulated photocurrent/photovoltage spectroscopy.

18:00
Joon Yoon Ten (The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Malaysia)
Lik Yin Ng (The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Malaysia)
Mimi Haryani Hassim (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia)
Denny K. S. Ng (The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Malaysia)
Nishanth Chemmangattuvalappil (The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Malaysia)
Uncertainty Analysis on the Integration of Safety and Health Indexes in a Chemical Product Design Framework

ABSTRACT. Computer aided molecular design (CAMD) techniques were developed to design molecules/mixtures that meet a set of desirable properties specified by the customers. Physicochemical properties are often selected as the target properties during the design stage. The incorporation of safety and health aspects into CAMD is crucial to ensure that the generated molecule does not cause harm and health-related risks to the consumers. A chemical product design methodology has been developed to integrate both safety and health aspects into the CAMD framework. The measurement of safety and health indicators are based on molecular properties that have impact on both aspects. Each property is assigned with an index value depending on the degree of potential hazards. These properties can be estimated through property prediction method. The accuracy of the allocated index score is thus dependent on the accuracy of property prediction models. In this work, uncertainty analysis is performed on the safety and health indicators to ensure that the allocated score better represents the inherent hazard of a molecule. A case study on solvent design for gas sweetening process has been carried out by considering uncertainties to determine the optimal molecule with reasonably low safety and health hazards level and optimum functionality.

18:00
Kushal Singh (IIT PATNA, India)
Rishu Kumar (IIT PATNA, India)
Anirban Chowdhury (IIT Patna, India)
Lanthanum doped Ceria Nanoparticles: a Promising Material for Energy Applications

ABSTRACT. Energy scarcity and environmental pollution are the two crucial challenges the world is facing now-a-days. In this relation, the nanostructures of cerium oxide based material has found its suitability as energy materials due to its excellent redox and transport properties; the high surface to volume ratio of the nanostructures also adds to this advantage [4]. In this work, we report the structural and catalytic properties of one such rare-earth doped Ceria nanostructures. The La-doped Ceria nanoparticles (Ce0.8La0.2O2-x) were prepared by co-precipitating lanthanum nitrate hexahydrate and cerium (III) nitrate hexahydrate at pH 8. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in conjunction with X-ray diffraction results depicted low temperature crystallization as early as 300 °C. This is the lowest reported temperature data for the La-doped Ceria system synthesized without any complexing agent/ligand, till date. The lattice parameter was calculated to be 5.492 ± 0.004 Å; the crystallite size was obtained as ~ 8 nm by Scherrer method. The structural and redox properties have been investigated by various characterization techniques, e.g., X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Temperature programmed reduction (TPR),Temperature programmed desorption (TPD). The catalytic properties of the Ce0.8La0.2O2-x nanostructures proved them to be useful for future energy related applications.

18:00
Vidya Pradeep Varma Ganapathiraju (VIT University, India)
Srinivas Tangellapalli (VIT University, India)
Investigation on optimum steam flushing pressure in a cogeneration cement factory

ABSTRACT. Currently India is producing 350 million tons of cement and so there is a more potential to generate the power through waste heat recovery. A case study has been conducted at a cement factory in India with cogeneration plant having steam flushing technology. The high pressure steam is flushed at two pressure levels (high pressure flushing and low pressure flushing) to increase the power cycle efficiency. The hot water from the flushing chamber is used for the regeneration of the cycle and the steam is supplied to the turbine at the relevant location. In the current work, the optimum values for the high pressure flushing and the lower pressure flushing are searched and developed for the maximum heat recovery and also high performance for cogeneration plant. The identified key operational parameters are steam generating pressure, limit to high pressure flushing and limit to low pressure flushing

18:00
Vinita Shirke (MGM college of engineering technology, India)
Suresh Ranade (MGM college of engineering technology, India)
Ritu Bansal (MGM college of engineering technology, India)
Equilibrium Model for Biomass Gasification: Study of effect of Biomass properties and Operating parameters

ABSTRACT. Biomass has evolves as one of most promising and clean sources of fuel. Biomass gasification is a thermal conversion process which converts solid biomass into syngas which is can be used for various applications including power generation. The choice of gasifying agent air or steam depends on the application of the syngas. India vast amount of the agri-waste residue is generated in agriculture field which can be used for power generation, chemical manufacturing and liquid fuel production using gasification technology. In this study, thermodynamic equilibrium model for biomass gasification is developed to calculate the syngas composition, gas calorific value, effect of temperature, oxygen to biomass ratio, and steam to biomass ratio . Model is solved using ‘Fsolve’ function in MATLAB.. Four biomasses wheat straw, paddy straw, rice straw and rice husk from Punjab state in India are studied. Gross calorific value of four biomasses at 1073K and oxygen/biomass=0.45 is in the range 24.0-26.6 kcal/mol. For steam/biomass=0.6 and 1073 K temperature, GCV of four biomasses is in the range 23.7-25.9 kcal/mol.

18:00
Nikhil Gakkhar (BITS Pilani, India)
M. S. Soni (BITS Pilani, India)
Sanjeev Jakhar (BITS Pilani, India)
Analysis of water cooling of CPV cells mounted on absorber tube of a Parabolic Trough Collector

ABSTRACT. In the present paper, an analytical approach has been developed and presented to estimate the thermal performance of multi-junction solar panel under high concentration with liquid cooling on both sides of the panel. For such system, the receiver of parabolic collector is modified to incorporate solar cells. A long panel of flexible solar cells is mounted on the outer side of circular receiver. The water is allowed to flow from inside as well as outside of receiver, thus reducing the temperature of the panel significantly. Analytical model is developed and thermal analysis has been carried out using MATLAB (vR2012a). The thermal model predicts the temperature variation of the cell along its length, which given the improved efficiency of the panel. To validate the proposed model, the simulation is performed in COMSOL (v5.1). The results shows that temperature of the liquid can be maintained up-to 85 °C, thus reducing the temperature of panel from initial temperature (without liquid cooling) of above 134 °C, under stagnant air in the annulus conditions. The results obtained are within the close approximation. The future scope would include the experimental validation of the proposed system.

18:00
Manoj Deshmukh (INSTITUTE OF CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY, MUMBAI19, India)
Dilip Sarode (INSTITUTE OF CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY, MUMBAI19, India)
Energy conservation by partial substitution of cement with an industrial waste from alumina industry in construction products.

ABSTRACT. Abstract: Production of cement is characterized by large energy consumption to the tune of 4GJ per ton. During one ton of cement production, an equivalent quantity of carbon dioxide is liberated in the environment. The worldwide production of cement accounts for almost 7% of total world CO2 emisions. Global cement composite consumption has crossed the mark of 20 billion tons per annum There is an urgent need to explore alternative substitute for cement. During Bayer’s process of production of alumina, a large quantities of dust-like alkaline industrial waste (bauxite residue) is discharged into the environment. At a global level, 120 million tonnes of bauxite residue (red mud) is produced per annum and 3 billion tonnes of red mud is already awaiting in the industrial backyards for its utilization. This huge quantum of red mud is likely to contaminate soil and water. An attempt is made here to substitute cement content in chequered tile with red mud in varying proportions such as 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 %. This would help to reduce energy consumption involved in the process of manufacturing of cement and would foster energy efficient clean technologies in construction industry.

18:00
Ch.L.S Srinivas (National Institute of Technology Goa, India)
Sreeraj E.S (National Institute of Technology Goa, India)
A Maximum Power Point Tracking Technique Based on Ripple Correlation Control for Single-Phase Photovoltaic System with Fuzzy Logic Controller

ABSTRACT. This paper proposes a novel maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique by integrating ripple correlation control (RCC) with fuzzy logic controller (FLC) for single-phase, single-stage grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems. RCC is suitable for implementing MPPT in single-phase PV systems and it possess advantages of less complexity, low cost of implementation and high rate of convergence. The proposed MPPT technique based on RCC integrated with FLC is working satisfactorily under varying insolation conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed technique has been verified by performing numerical simulation studies.

18:00
Simarpreet Singh (BITS PILANI, India)
Mani Shankar Dasgupta (BITS PILANI, India)
Work recovery scroll expander modeling for trans-critical CO2 refrigeration system at high ambient temperature

ABSTRACT. This paper presents an attempt to model a scroll type work recovery expander as applied in a trans-critical CO2 refrigeration system. A semi-empirical model proposed first by V. Lemort for R-123 is taken as basis for modeling. Although V. Lemort’s model was taken extended by himself and the other researchers for various fluids, it has not been explored to tans-critical CO2 application. The modified scroll work recovery expander model is developed in MATLAB and REFPROP used source for property data. The performance is evaluated with the published experimental data for CO2 trans-critical. The model required further tuning and will be useful for generating data for scroll expander at high ambient temperature or typical Indian conditions.

18:00
Vijayakumar P (SSN College of engineering, India)
Senthil Pandian M (SSN College of engineering, India)
Veerathangam K (SSN College of engineering, India)
Ramasamy P (SSN College of engineering, India)
Palladium Nanocubes Synthesized Via - Metal Chloride Route For Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC) Applications

ABSTRACT. Palladium nanocubes (Pd NCs) were synthesized using metal chloride route. The morphology of the electrode is observed by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Energy dispersive spectra analysis confirms the palladium material. The phase purity of the synthesized palladium nanocubes was investigated through X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis and the obtained pattern was compared with JCPDS data. The Photovoltaic performance of the DSSC with palladium counter electrode is being investigated.

18:00
Yashawant Kashyap (Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, India)
Ankit Bansal (Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India)
Anil Sao (Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, India)
Devender Tamta (LG Soft India Private Limited, India)
Radiation Forecasting with Elman back-propagation Neural Network using Groups of Multiple Parameters

ABSTRACT. Modern solar energy plant design need the information of solar radiation availability. In this paper, the Elman back-propagation Neural Network (ELM) of the artificial neural network (ANN) has been used for hourly solar radiation forecasting. 2002 to 2008, six-year of meteorological data has collected from Mandi location in India, which located at very different climate zone. Nine combinations of inputs parameters have been used for model performance comparison. The ANN model has inputs parameters shown best results (RMSE~0.2) in group-3 compared remaining eight groups besides higher numbers of inputs.

18:00
Geetanjali . (Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, India)
Kishan R. Bharadwaj (Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, India)
Sanjay Kumar (Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, India)
Radha Rani Mewaram (Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, India)
Effect of Chamber Volume, Electrode Material and Cation Exchange Membrane on Performance of Microbial Fuel Cell

ABSTRACT. There is a growing research interest in development of miniaturize microbial fuel cell (MFC) with reduce chamber volume and enhance electrode surface area. Till date, power density produced by MFCs is limited for commercial application. In this study, experiments were conducted to identify limiting factors in a dual chamber MFCs by varying the volumetric capacity of MFC, electrode material and proton exchange membrane (PEM) area while kept other operational parameters constant. Two MFCs with 500 mL and 200 mL capacity were constructed from plexiglass material and operated with three different electrode materials in fed batch mode for each experimental condition. Polarization and power curves were recorded for different electrodes performance in variable capacity of MFCs. Cyclic voltammetry curve were also evaluated for its peak anodic and cathodic value by potentiostat for all experimental conditions. The higher power density (3.04mW/m2) was observed with carbon cloth electrode and higher surface area of PEM which is three and six times higher in comparison with carbon paper and graphite material, respectively. These results indicated that carbon cloth was potential electrode material and higher PEM area was favorable for higher power density.

18:00
Deepam Das (Jadavpur University, India)
Bijoy Kumar Majhi (Jadavpur University, India)
Soumyajit Pal (Jadavpur University, India)
Tushar Jash (Jadavpur University, School of Energy Studies, Kolkata, India)
Estimation of land-fill gas generation from municipal solid waste in Indian Cities

ABSTRACT. Estimation of methane emission from the landfills is very much required for fast urbanizing countries. Rapid growth in population and industrialization causes a direct impact on the environment. As methane emission is a key contributor to the greenhouse effects it is necessary to quantify the methane emission from municipal solid waste (MSW), so as to take measures to ease the greenhouse gas emission. In this present study four models are used to quantify the methane emission estimation characteristics from MSW in twelve metropolitan cities covering different parts in India for a period of 30 years (1982 - 2012).

18:00
Ravi Ravi (iit roorkee, India)
Collector efficiency in counter flow type double pass solar air heaters having multi V shaped artificial roughness

ABSTRACT. In this paper, the collector efficiency double pass solar air heater with artificial roughness on the absorbing plate has been investigated experimentally. Considerable improvement in the collector efficiency is obtainable if collector is equipped with artificial roughness in double pass mode. In double pass mode the area for heat transfer becomes double therefore the heat transfer rate also becomes double. The effect of mass flow rate of air on thermohydraulic efficiency of the collector also investigated. The inlet and outlet air temperature, absorbing plate temperatures and pressure drop in the duct are measured. Double pass solar air heater with roughness is found to be more efficient than the double pass collector without roughness. The order of performances in the devices of the same size is: double pass with artificial roughness > double pass without roughness > single pass solar air heater.

18:00
Kishor Gaikwad (College of Engineering, Pune, India)
Kapil Gadge (College of Engineering, Pune, India)
Aditya Kadrolkar (College of Engineering, Pune, India)
Smita Lokhande (College of Engineering, Pune, India)
Kundan Kalange (College of Engineering, Pune, India)
Sahil Mutha (College of Engineering, Pune, India)
Rasika Joshi (College of Engineering, Pune, India)
Ekta Sharma (College of Engineering, Pune, India)
Solar Flower System for Residential Loads

ABSTRACT. Grid Power in most of the cases is polluted, unreliable and inefficient. Distributed Generation increases the reliability of power supply to the consumers. As these generating units are at the load side in the power system, this significantly reduces Transmission and Distribution losses. Distributed generation technology includes generation sources like solar, wind etc. Residential consumers are exists in large number in the Power system. Power requirement of residential consumers is less, so it is possible to have distributed generation for them using Solar Energy. Due to this, residential consumer will get flexibility in usage of power and rescue from load shedding problem. This paper discusses about the design, simulation and practical implementation of Solar flower system for residential loads. Solar panels are arranged in the shape of flowers forming a tree. Mechanical tracking system enables to extract of maximum power from the solar panels. This tracking system will confirm that panels are oriented towards the sun. Once the mechanical solar tree get settled, maximum power point tracking system in the DC-DC Converter will extract maximum power at that instant. Generated Power will used for two purpose, first to fulfill load demand and second to charge battery if load demand is less than generation. If the load demand is higher than generation then battery will supply that excess power. DC-DC Converter operated in Constant current (CC) and Constant Voltage (CV) mode is used to charge battery. Voltage source inverter is used to feed AC power to Load. Sinusoidal pulse width modulation technique is used in the Inverter for driving signals. The system can operate in two modes, either in grid connected or islanded mode. In grid connected mode, solar flower system will use its full generation capability to share load, while in islanded mode, power will be fed to critical loads. This is most suitable distributed generation for residential loads.

18:00
Pratima Das (karunya University, India)
MAXIMUM POWER TRACKING CONVERTER BASED OPEN CIRCUIT VOLTAGE METHOD FOR PV SYSTEM

ABSTRACT. Photovoltaic power plants pose challenges when integrated with power grid. The PV plants always focus on extracting maximum power from arrays. A new technique for tracking a pseudo-maximum power point for creating power reserve is presented. By using developed fractional open circuit voltage algorithm power is extracted from the array and continuously power is supplied to load as well as for charging the battery. In this project a 12V, 7Ah battery is used for charging and to avoid the revise current flow from the battery when input is, diode is replace by MOSFET which will stop the reverse current .Generally in other algorithm will trace the power when maximum input is coming for that time power circuit is disconnected from the load. In this case power developed algorithm is connected to designed moderate power five switch synchronous algorithm and operates in pseudo-operation which will continuously supply the power to charge the battery. This can be control by using PIC microcontroller which will generate the pulses and track the PV power. Precise measurement in the steady state shows that the converter finds the maximum power point with tracking 95.85%.

18:00
Tanweer Alam (Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, India)
Urvashi Upadhyay (Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, India)
Sikander Azam (Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, India)
Rakesh Kumar (Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, India)
Optimization of mass of heat pipe for space applications using Ant Colony Optimization

ABSTRACT. Small scale heat dissipation is one of the most researched areas in the field of heat transfer. The use of electronic devices is not only getting more and more popular but also the size of the gadgets is getting smaller. This makes the dissipation of heat from smaller surface areas more challenging than ever. Heat pipes are one such means to transfer heat used in electronic and space applications due to its ability to transfer heat over low temperature difference and its ability to work in zero gravity. Mass optimization of heat becomes of prime importance in these mass and space constrained applications. However, optimization is challenged by the constraints that have to be taken into consideration while designing heat pipe. The present study has intended show the suitability of evolutionary technique of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) in constrained problems by optimizing the mass of heat pipe used in satellite application while managing the constraints applicable to its operation and design.

18:00
Suresh Mane (Girijabai Sail Institute of Technology, Karwar, Karnartaka 581345, India)
Experimental Investigation of Single Cylinder Direct Injection CI Engine Performance Using Biofuels

ABSTRACT. Optimum parameters for Honge and Jatropha Curcas oil biodiesel when used in a single cylinder DI, CI engine were found experimentally. The raw vegetable oils were converted into their biodiesels (BD) separately by transesterification process. Tests were also carried to determine the properties of the fuels which include Flash point, Fire point, Kinematic viscosity and Gross calorific value at South Western Railways diesel shed laboratory. Engine tests were carried out using engine with PC interface separately for petroleum diesel, BD made from Jatropha oil and Pongamia Pinnata oils. Initially tests were carried out at three different injection timings to arrive at the optimum injection timings for the three fuels separately. This paper presents the results of investigations carried out on a single cylinder direct injection engine operating on diesel fuel, Methyl esters of Honge and Jatropha Curcas Oil. Engine tests have been carried out with the aim of obtaining comparative measures of brake thermal efficiency (BTE), brake specific fuel consumption (bsfc), brake power, exhaust gas temperature (EGT), NOx, HC and smoke emissions. All the tests were conducted at six different power outputs ( No load, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of rated power) and for three injection timings of 19o, 23o and 27o btdc keeping the injection pressure constant at 205 bar. It was observed that the optimum injection timing for Honge oil methyl ester (HOME), diesel and Jatropha oil methyl ester (JOME) at 205 bar injection pressure are 19o, 23o and 27o btdc respectively. It is observed that the brake thermal efficiency for HOME and JOME are slightly lower than neat diesel operation. However the brake specific fuel consumption of HOME and JOME were higher compared to Diesel. Emissions of NOx and HC also were comparatively lower for HOME and JOME when compared with Diesel for various Brake power conditions.

18:00
Rahul Dubey (IIT DELHI, India)
Subhransu Ranjan Samantaray (IIT BHUBANESWAR, India)
Gopalan Vijendran Venkoparao (Robert Bosch, India)
Impact of SVC /STATCOM on Distance Relay Performance for Wind Farm Integration

ABSTRACT. The paper presents an analytical approach for finding the possible impacts of shunt connected flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices such as static synchronous compensator (STATCOM)/ Static VAR Compensator (SVC) and off-shore wind penetration on distance relay characteristics. Analytical results are presented and verified by simulated results (based on steady state model of STATCOM & SVC). The result compares under reaching for both FACTS devices & it is found that under reaching is more severe for SVC connected system. Moreover presence of SVC changes the line characteristic presented to relay even for bolted faults. It is also seen that type of coupling transformer has a considerable effect on apparent impedance. Furthermore, the reach setting of the relay is significantly affected as the relay end voltage fluctuates continuously when off-shore wind-farms are connected to power transmission systems. Thus, generating tripping characteristics for appropriate operating conditions is a demanding concern and the same has been addressed in the proposed research work.

18:00
Prakash Kumar K (VIT University, India)
Saravanan B (VIT University, India)
Swarup K.S (IIT Madras, India)
A Two Stage Increase-Decrease algorithm to Optimize Distributed Generation in a Virtual Power Plant

ABSTRACT. A two stage algorithm is proposed in this paper to optimize cost of generation in a virtual power plant. First stage of the algorithm presents a methodology to draw a hierarchy for the choice of distributed generators based on the cost of generation. Second stage of the algorithm optimizes generation to minimize cost. An Additive Increase and Multiplicative Decrease algorithm, which is already used for optimization in microgrids is improved further and is presented as Modified Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease algorithm and is applied in the second stage of the algorithm for optimization. The Modified Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease algorithm is validated by implementing to schedule generation of distributed generators with intermittent power availability in a Virtual Power Plant in grid connected mode to optimize the cost of generation. The Modified AIMD algorithm is proved to be much more effective than the original AIMD algorithm.

18:00
Kunal Bhagat (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Sandip Kumar Saha (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Numerical Study of Thermal Storage using Encapsulated Phase Change Material for Solar Thermal Power Plant

ABSTRACT. Concentrated solar thermal (CST) power plant is among the clean energy sources for electricity generation but it is subjected to intermittent intensity of solar energy through-out a day, affecting integration with national grid for large scale production as well as integration with turbine for small scale Organic Rankine cycle (ORC). Integrating tailored designed latent thermal energy storage system with CST to cope up with fluctuations at turbine inlet can lead to increase in efficiency of turbine. In this work, 0.31 kW-hr capacity of thermal storage tank is designed, wherein, packed bed latent thermal storage system consists of encapsulated Phase Change Material (A164- an organic PCM), and Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF), Hyptherm 600. A comprehensive model is developed which accounts for flow of HTF through porous media and thermal non- equilibrium between HTF and PCM. Solidification and melting of PCM is modelled using enthalpy-porosity technique. Model validation is performed to test the reliability of developed model. Parametric study is performed to identify effect of parameters like Reynold number, Stefan number, porosity, and tank dimension and encapsulation diameter. Charging and discharging analyses are carried out by quantifying energy stored (E_s), energy released (E_r) and efficiency (η).

18:00
P. Srinivasan (BITS-Pilani., India)
Dubey Satish Kumar (BITS-Pilani., India)
Internalising the external cost of electricity generation- An approach for the economic viability of renewable energy based power generation.

ABSTRACT. Unit cost of electricity generation is one of the major factors influencing the decision of installing new power plants. In India more than 65% of electricity demand is met by thermal power plants attributed to low cost electricity generation and large availability of coal.The cost of electricity is primarily obtained by taking into account the different costs associated with the installing and running a power plants. This leads to cheaper cost of power from coal based thermal power plants when compared to renewable based power plants. Hence, the growth rate of renewable energy based power plants is considerably less when compared to coal based thermal power plants. However, the environmental damage caused during the process of power generation has not been accounted in the present system.European Union has developed a model to internalise the external cost of power generation by taking into consideration the environmental impact of power generation such as release of Carbon dioxide, water requirements, particulate emission, land usage etc.,.This model suggest an approach to arrive at the cost of electricity generation taking into consideration the environmental impact caused by the power plants.This will lead to increased cost of electricity generation from thermal power plant when compared to renewable energy based power plants.In the present work an attempt is made to internalise the external cost of electricity generation from coal based power plants in India and predict the future trend in increase in cost of electricity generation by different sources to arrive at the time in which the renewable energy based power plant may be cheaper than conventional coal based thermal power plants. This may help the energy planner to plan the use of different energy resources to meet the future electricity demand through green power.

18:00
Soumyajit Sen Gupta (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Sharad Bhartiya (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Yogendra Shastri (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Optimized process synthesis of biodiesel production from microalgae

ABSTRACT. Microalgae is a promising candidate as a non-conventional source of energy. Biodiesel can be produced from the lipid fraction of microalgae. Although technically feasible, the process of producing biodiesel from microalgae is not commercially economical, necessitating systematic optimization studies. In this work, a superstructure optimization model, involving the crucial steps of growth of microalgae, harvesting of the culture, extraction of lipid and conversion of lipid to biodiesel is developed. Various possibilities in terms of design variables and operating conditions are considered for each of these steps, with the objective being minimization of annualized life cycle cost. The resulting Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is solved using CPLEX solver on GAMS platform to meet a daily demand of 30,000 kg of biodiesel from microalgae Chlorella sp. The cost of biodiesel for the optimal case is found as US $12.795/l. The optimal process consists of growth in a medium of chicken waste as nutrient, followed by settling with ACTIPOL-FB1 polyelectrolyte as flocculant. The lipid extraction is carried out with chloroform: methanol 1:1 mixture. The transesterification reaction, yielding biodiesel from lipid, is facilitated by alkali catalyst. The lipid extraction is the most critical step, as evident from the sensitivity analysis.

18:00
Durga Raja (IIT Bombay, India)
Yogendra Shastri (IIT Bombay, India)
Performance Evaluation of Algal Photobioreactors Using CFD and Growth Modeling

ABSTRACT. Algae based biofuels have been identified as potential replacements for conventional diesel. However, due to high material costs and energy demands of the existing photobioreactors (PBRs), the large scale cultivation of algae and algal biofuel production are currently very expensive. Hence, researchers need to focus on fostering novel as well as efficient PBR designs and modelling algal growth in such PBRs. In this work we evaluated the performance of a conventional airlift PBR and a novel hybrid PBR in terms of their light utilization efficiency and realizable algal biomass productivity, using the technique of CFD. An integrated algal growth model and Beer-Lambert light attenuation model were incorporated in the CFD simulation studies. The changes in microalgal productivity in both the PBRs under varying growth conditions were also studied. Airlift PBR was found to be more efficient than novel PBR in allowing light penetration. Even though the biomass productivity in the PBRs was comparable, the time required to complete algae growth in conventional PBR was 100% more than that in novel PBR.

18:00
Jignesh N Patel (MERCHANT INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,PILUDARA, India)
Sukritindra Soni (MERCHANT INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,PILUDARA, India)
Dr.Dipak M Patel (LALJIBHAI CHATURBHAI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,BHANDU, India)
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF HYBRID SOLAR COOKING AND WATER HEATING SYSTEM

ABSTRACT. The energy obtains from the solar radiation by the Concentrating system. Here design and analysis is carried out for combined hybrid system of solar cooker and water heater. Hybrid system develops and fabricate for three research objectives ENERGY, ECOLOGY & ECONOMY. Study the effects of the solar cooker on its performance with wrapping water circulating copper tube for heat recovery system. More than 85% of the incoming solar energy is either reflected or absorbed as heat energy. The hybrid concentrating collector technology using water as the heat recover has been seen as a solution for improving the energy performance. The study was carried out to evaluate the combined effect of solar cooker with water heating system. Our observation is that very few studies and design appropriate recommendations are made which will aid solar cooker with water heating systems (thermosyphonic) to improve their overall, thermal efficiency and reducing their cost and utilize energy for making combination of solar cooker with water heating system. With this type of hybrid system saving increased and return on investment is faster so payback period of investment is reduced. System is utilized for more hours/day for cooking as well as water heating.

18:00
Srihari Mandava (VIT University, India)
Ramesh V (VIT University, India)
HARMONIC ESTIMATION USING OFDM PRINCIPLE

ABSTRACT. Microgrids are playing a key role in the modern power system network and have a good potential in future. Power electronic circuits play a key role in connecting the micro grid to the power system network. These power electronic circuits inject lots of harmonics and a noise degrading the power quality in the network. The objective of this work is to spot the harmonics injected by the active power electronic circuits. Most of the work in the literature concentrates on total number of operations, number of cycles needed to determine the harmonics, accuracy and the filter design parameters. This work concentrates on the novel method of analyzing the harmonics using the communication technology concept OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) as base principle and modifying it as required to the power system. The demodulation technique is applied on the power system signal and the harmonics are measured looking like the harmonics in power system are frequency division multiplexed orthogonally. The harmonics are detected using fast fourier transform in the OFDM.

18:00
Ashish Kumar (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Sandip Kumar Saha (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
SECOND LAW ANALYSIS OF LATENT HEAT THERMAL STORAGE FOR ORC-BASED SOLAR THERMAL POWER PLANT

ABSTRACT. Solar radiation is used in concentrating solar plant in order to transfer heat to the fluid, which is used in different power cycles to generate electricity. Since the solar radiation fluctuates throughout the day, so thermal energy availability and its period of usage is one of the major problems in solar thermal power generation plant. This situation leads to the need of some effective method, which can store energy for later utilization in unavailability of solar radiation. Traditionally, energy was stored in the form of sensible heat, which requires large volume of storage material. The storage volume can be significantly reduced if energy is stored in the form of latent heat and thus can benefit enormously practical applications. Phase change material (PCM) due to its high energy density and isothermal nature of storage getting very famous in thermal energy storage systems. There are large numbers of PCMs that melt and solidify at a wide range of temperatures, making them attractive in a number of applications. However, most of the PCMs possess very low thermal conductivity (~0.2–0.5 W/m-K), which severely affects the thermal performance of the storage system. Various types of thermal conductivity enhancers are available to augment the heat transfer in PCM, such as fins, metal matrix, PCM encapsulation etc. The present study focuses on use of metal matrix in order to increase the heat transfer rate through PCM. A storage system will be almost handicapped if it is not efficiently managed mainly in case of large-scale utilization like solar thermal energy storage. Thus, at the same time analysis of quality of energy in a thermodynamic system is important in order to obtain good efficiency of the system. In this context, second law of thermodynamics assessment of the storage system gives the quality of energy and also helps to find the causes of irreversibility. For the low temperature application (~ 200 0C), an organic PCM (A164) is selected with desirable melting point (~ 168.7 0C) for the shell and tube thermal storage system. Heat transfer fluid (Hytherm 600) flows through the tubes, whereas PCM is stored inside the annular space of the shell side. Parametric studies are carried out by changing metal matrix material and porosity of matrix in order to evaluate the configuration with minimum entropy generation and maximum second law efficiency during charging and discharging process. The enthalpy technique is adopted for modeling convection-diffusion phase change in the storage system. Specifically at each time step local gradients of temperature is computed to evaluate local entropy generation rate. Global entropy generation is calculated by numerical integration of local generation at each time instant.

18:00
Shankar Raman (VIT University, India)
T Srinivas (VIT University, India)
Comparison Study of Aqua-Ammonia and LiBr-Water Solar Cooling Cogeneration Cycle

ABSTRACT. Cooling needs are increasing rapidly at hot climatic countries with increased global warming. Some commercial units and industries need more amount of cooling than the power such as cold storage, shopping complex etc. The existed vapor compression refrigeration (VCR) system demands electricity for its operation which is more expensive. The available combined power and cooling cycle (Goswami cycle) operates with ammonia-water mixture as working fluid having low cooling due to the saturated vapor at the inlet of evaporator. It also demands high ammonia concentration at turbine inlet to get cooling effect and suitable only at low sink temperature (10-12 °C). In this work, a new cooling cogeneration cycle has been proposed and solved to generate more cooling with adequate power generation from single source of heat with two options in working fluids i.e. ammonia-water mixture and LiBr-water mixture. The resulted cycle energy utilization factor (EUF), plant EUF, specific power, specific cooling and solar collector area are 0.27, 0.10, 15 kW, 220 kW and 10 m2/ kW for ammonia-water mixture plant and 0.82, 0.33, 25 kW, 180 kW and 3 m2/kW for LiBr-water mixture plant respectively

18:00
Asmita Shinde (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Sandip Kumar Saha (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Numerical study of latent heat storage system for ORC-based solar thermal power plant for extension of electricity generation

ABSTRACT. Thermal energy storage (TES) plays a very important role to reduce the gap between energy supply and demand. It also improves thermal efficiency of solar energy storage system. TES system using phase change material is used because of high-energy storage density per unit volume and can transfer heat with a small temperature difference. In the present study, shell and tube heat exchanger is considered for the design of thermal energy storage system using phase change material (PCM) for Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) based solar thermal plant for extending the electricity generation after sunset. The PCM (A164) is filled in shell side and heat transfer fluid (Hytherm 600) is in tube side. The melting temperature of the PCM is 168.8 °C. As the thermal conductivity of HTF is low, which results in high thermal resistance of HTF, Fins are on inner wall of the HTF tube to enhance heat transfer. Also PCM possess high energy density but low thermal conductivity, here there is a need to use thermal conductivity enhancers to enhance heat transfer within PCM. There are several ways to improve heat transfer in PCM, however in the present study, fins are chosen for improving the heat transfer. The study numerically investigates the solidification of PCM using enthalpy technique. Different parametric cases are studied to evaluate their effect on the thermal performance of PCM-based thermal energy storage system, such as fin thickness, fin height, number of fins. The effect of inlet temperature, initial temperature and different tube location are also investigated to obtain desired outlet HTF temperature. It is found that effect of fin length and number of fins plays significant role in solidification process in terms of outlet HTF temperature and liquid fraction gives the total time required for solidification of PCM.

18:00
Payala Venkat Vikash (IIT Bombay, India)
Khushboo Singh (BITS Pilani, India)
Yogendra Shastri (IIT Bombay, India)
Optimization of Bagasse Utilization for Ethanol Production in a Sugar Mill

ABSTRACT. India is one of the major producers of sugarcane. Therefore, there is an opportunity to divert the bagasse produced as a byproduct produce second generation ethanol. Such an approach is expected to improve economics of lignocellulosic ethanol production. However, it requires careful process integration and optimization of the various available resources. This work has developed a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) optimization model to optimize the distribution of bagasse in an existing sugar mill to coproduce ethanol and sucrose. A superstructure approach was considered, wherein mass and energy balances of different processing routes, for a sugar mill processing 500,000 kg/hr of sugarcane feedstock, constituted the constraints of the optimization model. Economic analysis of the model was done by estimating the Break Even Selling Price (BESP) of ethanol. Process integration of lignin, another by-product, and its consequent effect on the economics was evaluated. The base case results from the optimization problem showed that the BESP of ethanol was ₹165.65/l when trash was available for utilization for heat production. Without trash availability, the BESP increased to ₹ 319.16/l. Conversion of lignin to vanillin was very expensive and hence not recommended. Sensitivity analysis was done with respect to key cost and process parameters.

18:00
Anil Patil (Department of Mechanical Engineering, DIT University, Dehradun-248009, Uttarakhand, India, India)
Manoj Kumar (Department of Mechanical Engineering, DIT University, Dehradun-248009, Uttarakhand, India, India)
Chaitanya Vashistha (Department of Mechanical Engineering, DIT University, Dehradun-248009, Uttarakhand, India, India)
Thermal Performance of Solar Water Heater with Multiple Twisted Tape Inserts

ABSTRACT. The thermal performance of solar water heater largely depends on the flow characteristics of fluid inside the tube. The present work aims to study the thermal performance of solar water heater having multiple twisted tape inserts in the fluid tubes. The thermal and effective efficiencies of solar water heater with multiple inserts are compared with that of a heater with smooth tubes under the similar operating conditions. The results show that the application of multiple inserts in the fluid tubes considerably increases the thermal and effective efficiencies of a conventional solar water heater.

18:00
Gaurav Dwivedi (IIT Roorkee, India)
Mahendra Pal Sharma (IIT Roorkee, India)
Puneet Verma (IIT Roorkee, India)
Prem Kumar (IIT Roorkee, India)
Engine Performance Using Waste Cooking Biodiesel and Its Blends with Kerosene and Ethanol

ABSTRACT. The Waste cooking oil is popular source for biodiesel production and it can be developed as substitute to diesel. The aim of the present work is to evaluate the fuel properties and investigate the impact on engine performance using waste cooking biodiesel and its blend with diesel, kerosene and ethanol. The result of investigation show that cold flow properties of waste cooking biodiesel blend with ethanol and kerosene are much better than waste cooking biodiesel and its blends with diesel. The blends were also tested on diesel engine to evaluate the engine performance and the result shows that Brake Specific fuel consumption for waste cooking biodiesel blend with ethanol and kerosene are higher as compared to waste cooking biodiesel and it blends with diesel. This is due to lower calorific value for ethanol and kerosene. The brake thermal efficiency for waste cooking biodiesel blend with diesel is higher as compared to other blends of waste cooking biodiesel with ethanol and kerosene. The result shows that waste cooking biodiesel blend with ethanol and kerosene can be recommended for cold climatic conditions while WCB20 can be developed as an alternative to diesel.

18:00
Krishnaiah Mokurala (IIT Bombay, India)
Isheta Majumdar (IIT Bombay, India)
Siva Shankar Nemala (IIT Bombay, India)
Parag Bhargava (IIT Bombay, India)
Sudhanshu Mallick (IIT Bombay, India)
Effect of thermally oxidized TiOx compact layer and multiple sintering of mesoporous TiO2 on the performance of dye sensitized solar cells.

ABSTRACT. The impact of thermally oxidized TiOx compact layer and the effect of sintering process of mesoporous TiO2 film on dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) performance was studied. Adhesion at mesoporous TiO2 film and FTO substrate interface, interparticle connectivity in the TiO2 film influence DSSC performance. Multiple doctor blade coatings of mesoporous TiO2 with sintering after each coating were prepared to build the thickness and improve the interparticle connectivity in the mesoporous TiO2 film which was confirmed by nanoindentation measurement. Adherence between the mesoporous TiO2 layer and FTO substrate was examined with the help of ultrasonication. For films made of compact layer with multiple sintering of mesoporous TiO2, peeling off of the mesoporous TiO2 film from FTO substrate was negligible as compared to films made without multiple sintering (WMS) and without compact layer. DSSCs fabricated using without multiple sintering (WMS) of mesoporous TiO2 with Pt as counter electrode (CE) showed a photo conversion efficiency (PCE) of 3.4% as compared to films made with multiple sintering (MS) of mesoporous TiO2 which showed 6.6% efficiency. DSSCs fabricated with compact layer and multiple sintering (MS) of mesoporous TiO2 with Pt as CE showed a PCE of 8.4%. DSSCs performance was interpreted by electrochemical impedence spectroscopy (EIS).

18:00
Umarani Devaraj (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Seyezhai Ramalingam (SSN College of Engineering, India)
Modelling and Control of Quasi Z-Source Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter for Grid Connected Photovoltaic Systems

ABSTRACT. This paper presents the modeling and controlling the power of Quasi Z-Source cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter for grid connected photovoltaic systems. The Quasi Z-Source inverter is an inverter that provides buck / boost output along with DC-AC conversion in a single stage. This topology has numerous advantages which makes it reliable and suitable for PV applications. Due to the impedance network and the cascaded H-bridge structure, it provides high gain, reduced total harmonic distortion (THD) and high reliability in PV systems. In this paper, a five level cascaded H-Bridge Quasi Z-source inverter has been considered for which the impedance network has been designed. Phase Shifted Inverted Sine carrier pulse width modulation has been implemented along with shoot- through control for controlling the switches of the inverter. The closed loop power control scheme has been implemented in two stages. In the PV input side, each string voltage is controlled by adjusting the shoot-through states of the inverter using Independent Maximum Power Point Tracking Control. DC link voltage of each bridge has been balanced by using DC link voltage control. Both of these controlling actions result in the control of grid injected power. A 2kVA PV inverter has been designed and built using MATLAB/SIMULINK and the hardware has been completed for the open loop control. The simulation and open loop hardware results are discussed.

18:00
Dr.Vikramaditya Dave (College of Technology and Engineering, udaipur, India)
Pradeep Kumar Mishra (Department of Physics, Ranchi university, India)
Dr. Ramesh Chandra (Indian institute of technology, roorkee, India)
Nanostructured Hafnium oxide thin films for sensing carbon monoxide: An experimental investigation

ABSTRACT. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a pollutant with potential to harm all living things. The main source of CO is vehicle emissions, burn agriculture and industrial activities. Although carbon monoxide is only a weak greenhouse gas, its influence on climate goes beyond its own direct effects. Its presence affects concentrations of other greenhouse gases including methane, tropospheric ozone and carbon dioxide. In this paper, we are reporting the CO sensing properties of hafnium oxide thin films. The thin films of HfO2 were deposited on glass substrates using DC magnetron sputtering technique at three different temperatures. The structural, morphological, optical and electrical properties were investigated using XRD, AFM, UV-vis NIR spectrophotometer and electrical unit respectively. The crystalline nature of the film increases with the temperature. It was also found that the sensitivity of the films to CO increases with the temperature. The porosity of the films as reflected by its transmission curve also increases with temperature. The wettability of the films was also determined using water contact angle meter and films shows hydrophobic behaviour.

18:00
Borkha Das (Dibrugarh University, India)
Subrata Gogoi (Dibrugarh University, India)
Bidyut Hazarika (Dibrugarh University, India)
EOR – Experimental Study to attain self sufficiency in crude oil production in Naharkatiya oil field

ABSTRACT. The present study examines an important enhanced oil recovery method in order to increase the oil recovery of depleting Nahorkatiya oil field of Upper Assam Basin. Surfactant flooding is the most promising EOR technique which uses surfactant to reduce the interfacial tension (IFT) and allow oil to flow through the porous media. In my study, petroleum surfactant that has been investigated for attaining such low interfacial tensions is inexpensive Black Liquor (BL), obtained from Nowgong Paper Mill, Jagiroad, Assam. The main constituent of BL is Na-Lignosulfonate, which is chosen as an alternative surfactant source because it is derived from bamboo which is renewable and abundantly available in this region. Addition of surfactants reduces the capillary forces that trap the oil in the pores of the rock and thereby reduces the IFT between oleic phase and aqueous phase which finally leads to decrease in residual oil saturation and enhanced oil recovery.

18:00
Kiran Naik (Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, India)
Ankit Soni (Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, India)
Chandramohan Somayaji (Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Guwahati, India)
Palanisamy Muthukumar (Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India)
Coupled Heat and Mass Transfer Analyses of an Adiabatic Dehumidifier – An Unique Approach

ABSTRACT. Liquid desiccant dehumidifier is one of the best system for dehumidification of process air in comparison with conventional refrigeration system and solid desiccant based dehumidifier. In the present study, a finite difference model is developed to simulate the coupled heat and mass transfer characteristics of a counter flow adiabatic dehumidifier employing lithium chloride (LiCl) as a desiccant solution. Mat-lab R13 is used as a simulation package for solving the aforementioned model. The model depends on thermal effectiveness, effective height and moisture effectiveness as variable parameters, and these parameters are correlated with the heat and mass transfer coefficients in order to obtain the desired operating parameters. The predicted results for absorption process have good agreement with the experimental data reported in the literature. This model can be extended to any type of liquid desiccant solution by changing the properties of that solution. The performance analysis of adiabatic counter flow dehumidifier is carried out by varying the operating parameters and the detailed results will be presented in the full manuscript.

18:00
Vinod Kumar Sharma (IIT Indore, India)
Anil Kumar Emadabathuni (IIT Indore, India)
Thermodynamic Analysis of Two Stage Metal Hydride Based Hydrogen Compressor

ABSTRACT. A pair of high pressure metal hydrides La0.9Ce0.1Ni5Hx and La0.8Ce0.2Ni5Hx were used for the thermodynamic analysis of two stage metal hydride based hydrogen compressor (MHHC). The PCIs of these metal hydrides were measured at different temperatures and thermodynamic properties were estimated using van’t Hoff plots. Later, the performance of MHHC was determined based on the driving pressure differential, and the rate of hydrogen transfer between coupled metal hydride beds using PCIs and thermodynamic property data. In addition, the actual variation in pressure difference during hydrogen transfer processes of MHHC was studied by plotting thermodynamic cycle with pressure variations.

18:00
Ajeet Kumar (CERD, Mech. Engg., IIT (BHU), India)
Dr.Shailendra Kumar Shukla (CERD,Mech.Engg., IIT (BHU), India)
Dr. Jeewan Vachan Tirkey (CERD, Mechanical Engineering, IIT(BHU), Varanasi, India)
A Review of Research and Policy on Using Different Biodiesel oils as Fuel for C.I. Engine

ABSTRACT. The increasing demand of energy for rapid industrialization and domestic needs are putting an additional pressure on existing conventional energy sources. These are already producing more hazardous emissions into the environment than its prescribed limits. So we need some kind of energy source which must be easily available, cost effective and most importantly it must be environmental friendly. Many researches worked on this and found an alternate fuel i.e. biodiesel which can be produced from the various feed stocks. This may be the best substitute for the conventional energy and having almost negligible effect on environment and also a solution to one of the most challenging environmental issues. This paper analyses the various aspects such as performance and emission of biodiesel. The main focus area of this review is to discuss the reduction of major pollutants like carbon monoxide (CO), unburnt hydrocarbons (UHC), particulate matter (PM) and effect of fatty acid composition on performance and emission characteristics. Biodiesel can be used as fuel without modification in CI engine, it means biodiesel replaces the diesel fuel. The various results show that the different chemical composition of biodiesel lead to the variation in performance and emission characteristics based on their source of origin. The biodiesel obtained from saturated feedstock shows low emission of NOx and high resistance to oxidation, however to improve the atomization further research and policy issues is required to understand the complex relationship between biodiesel feedstock and its characteristics and use.

18:00
Bandana Singha (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India)
Chetan Solanki (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India)
Optimization of Boron Spin on Dopant (BSOD) Diffusion for Emitter Formation In n- type c-Si Solar Cells

ABSTRACT. Boron spin on dopant (BSOD) is an alternative boron source to BBr3 liquid dopant for p+ emitter formation. In this work, we have used different process control steps to reduce the issues related to BSOD diffusion so that the uniformity in the sheet resistance values can be maintained and optimized for emitters in n- type solar cells. After eliminating the B precipitates from the emitter surface by control process steps, the emitters have been optimized for sheet resistance values ≤60Ω/sq with variation less than ±5Ω/sq. The corresponding junction depth for the same is less than 400nm as measured by SIMS analysis. All the experiments are carried out with Czochralski n- type c-Si wafers which showed an improvement of an effective minority carrier lifetime by more than 2 times in controlled process steps. The measured Sun’s Voc and implied Voc are in the range 575- 600mV without any passivation. PC1D simulation shows the efficiency of the solar cell without any passivation is 14.8%. This shows BSOD as a promising source for p+ emitter formation in n- type c-Si solar cells.

18:00
Nikita Arora (IIT Bombay, India)
Ravi Tejwani (IIT Bombay, India)
Chetan Solanki (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India)
Nc Narayanan (IIT Bombay, India)
Jayandaran Venkateswaran (IIT Bombay, India)
Localization of Solar Energy through Local Assembly, Sale and Usage of 1Million Solar Study Lamps

ABSTRACT. The concept of ‘Solarization’ has been doing rounds for past decade. Use of Solar Energy is advocated by many; however, the sustainability of the solar energy has never been discussed. ‘Localization of Solar Energy through Local Assembly, Sale and Usage of 1 Million Solar Study Lamps’, an initiative by IIT Bombay in partnership with NCEF tries to address the challenges of sustainability through the twin pillars of ‘Localization and Saturation’. Moreover, under this project the focus is given on making the rural economy self sufficient in solar products along with accomplishing the aim of Right to Light to each child. In this paper, we discuss the energy requirements of rural India, followed by technical design of the SoUL lamp that has been distributed, along with a brief idea of the objectives and the framework which has been incorporated while distributing SoUL.

18:00
Swathy Pillai (Fr. C. Rodrigues Institute of Technology, India)
Sushil Thale (Fr. C. Rodrigues Institute of Technology, India)
Design and Implementation of a Three Phase Inverter for Renewable Energy Source with Unified Control Strategy.

ABSTRACT. The energy requirement of the world is growing enormously and will continue to rise as year’s progress. The increased usage of the conventional sources are leading to further deterioration of the environment. Therefore it becomes essential to search for alternatives which can support us in protecting our environment as well as meeting our demands. Renewable energy sources (RES) are certainly a solution to the above problems thus leading to a sustainable and ecofriendly environment and hence, increased measures are being taken to harvest this energy to the maximum. Solar power based generation is increasing as days are progressing because it is evidently one of the most abundant sources available in our country. Adding to its advantages are the facts that they can be installed in almost every location and the maintenance required is also less in comparison to other RES’s.Grid connected photovoltaic (PV) systems are gaining more significance over standalone configuration. The evident reason being that there is no longer the unavoidable necessity of an energy storage system (ESS) to nullify the ineffectiveness of the PV source during the nighttime or low insolation period. On the other hand in interconnected systems there always lies a fear of cascaded tripping and a brownout or a blackout. To solve this problem and thus aid us in at least powering our critical loads in such a crisis situation, the concept of microgrids was developed. Microgrids are basically low- or medium-voltage controlled and monitored power systems that can include numerous distributed energy resources (DERs), and local loads. The project proposed hereby aims to design and implement a three phase inverter with unified control strategy for balanced as well as unbalanced ac system conditions. The unified control strategy takes into consideration the general feedback requirements for desired response and performance from the microgrid and at the same time includes a feedforward control for DC bus control .This paper deals with a PV based VSC system feeding the grid in the same context. The current work includes simulation based studies on 2 kVA grid connected voltage source converter (VSC) system for balanced grid conditions. The simulation results and bode plot for Grid connected VSC system are also presented.

18:00
Nikita Arora (IIT Bombay, India)
Lalita Joshi (IIT-Bombay, India)
Ravi Tejwani (IIT Bombay, India)
Abhilasha Chauhan (IIT- Bombay, India)
Jayandaran Venkateswaran (IIT Bombay, India)
Nc Narayanan (IIT Bombay, India)
Chetan Solanki (IIT- Bombay, India)
A model of localisation of solar energy for providing ‘right to clean light’ to rural school-going children

ABSTRACT. Million Solar Urja Lamps (SoUL) Programme (MSP) is Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay’s initiative aimed at reaching millions of rural school-going children (grade 5th to 12th) who are deprived of primary energy, i.e. light, after the sunset. The MSP gave firsthand experience of renewable technology in this case solar photovoltaic (PV) to the rural, poor and marginal communities and has two pronged objectives of: contributing to education of the children by providing ‘right to clean light to rural school going students’ thus offering an opportunity to study in solar light during dark hours and seeding the rural solar PV market through providing cost-effective substitute to kerosene lighting. These objectives are achieved through ‘model of localisation of solar energy’. The paper highlights the lessons emerged from implementing the pilot of the MSP that has reached 7.5 lakh rural students spread over four Indian states in a short span of a year and is offering free after sale service for a year. The pilot of the MSP has demonstrated that the model holds potential for speedy dissemination with wider scalability and utility in making it effective in the local context through involvement of local communities.

18:00
Shivani Singh (IIT BOMBAY, India)
Sagar Mitra (IIT BOMBAY, India)
Electrochemical properties of Li2FeP2O7 as cathode material for Li-ion Battery

ABSTRACT. : Li2FeP2O7 is polyanionic framework based cathode material having operating voltage around 3.5 V. Pyrophosphate have three dimensional structure where Li ion diffusion is two dimensional. Li2FeP2O7 has been synthesized by solid state reaction. The secondary particles have irregular shape and size in the range of 1 to 2 µm. The bulk and surface properties of particles have been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The Li2FeP2O7 composite delivers initial discharge capacity of 98 mAh g-1 and 96 mAh g-1 at the current rates of 7.3 mA g-1 and 11 mA g-1 respectively.

18:00
Debanjan Sannigrahi (IIT Bombay, India)
Sushil Rajagopalan (IIT Bombay, India)
Chetan Singh Solanki (IIT Bombay, India)
Light Intensity for Study Purpose: A Critical Insight from Rural Households

ABSTRACT. Despite electrification, the energy consumption in rural areas of India is low and the main use of electricity is for lighting purposes. People generally use incandescent bulbs, CFLs or tube lights for illuminating households. Low light intensity devices used for illuminating households are not conducive for studying since the standard of lighting for study purposes is generally above 250 Lux. A systematic survey was conducted on the availability of light intensity for reading purposes in rural electrified houses by Energy Science and Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay as a part of larger socio-economic impact evaluation under ‘Million SoUL’ project. This rural light intensity study was conducted in 120 rural households in Maharashtra to identify and understand the lighting condition under which the villagers are habituated to do their daily routine activities post sun sets. It is found that ninety-six percent of the households have just one conventional device of lighting while the remaining 4% of the households have two or more conventional device of lighting. The households mostly use CFLs as preferred lighting device followed by Incandescent Bulbs. The results also showed that in maximum percentage of houses the Maximum Observed Light Intensity (MaOLI) was found, on an average, as less than 20 Lux. The study, therefore, proves that rural people in Maharashtra do not have conducive lighting environment for study purposes and thus require additional source of lighting especially for the purpose of children’s study. Hence it is proposed to use SoUL (Solar Urja Lamp) as an alternative to overcome this problem at rural level since this study lamp has intensity levels of around 130-150 Lux in lower mode and around 230-250 Lux at higher mode, which can suffice the lighting requirement for study as well as general activity purposes. The light intensity inside the hut/house is also depending on some external factors like the power and position of fit outs, internal spacing and coloring etc.

18:00
Swathy Pillai (Fr. C. Rodrigues Institute of Technology, India)
Sushil Thale (Fr. C. Rodrigues Institute of Technology, India)
Design and Implementation of a Three Phase Inverter for Renewable Energy Source with Unified Control Strategy.

ABSTRACT. The energy requirement of the world is growing enormously and will continue to rise as year’s progress. The increased usage of the conventional sources are leading to further deterioration of the environment. Therefore it becomes essential to search for alternatives which can support us in protecting our environment as well as meeting our demands. Renewable energy sources (RES) are certainly a solution to the above problems thus leading to a sustainable and ecofriendly environment and hence, increased measures are being taken to harvest this energy to the maximum. Solar power based generation is increasing as days are progressing because it is evidently one of the most abundant sources available in our country. Adding to its advantages are the facts that they can be installed in almost every location and the maintenance required is also less in comparison to other RES’s.Grid connected photovoltaic (PV) systems are gaining more significance over standalone configuration. The evident reason being that there is no longer the unavoidable necessity of an energy storage system (ESS) to nullify the ineffectiveness of the PV source during the nighttime or low insolation period. On the other hand in interconnected systems there always lies a fear of cascaded tripping and a brownout or a blackout. To solve this problem and thus aid us in at least powering our critical loads in such a crisis situation, the concept of microgrids was developed. Microgrids are basically low- or medium-voltage controlled and monitored power systems that can include numerous distributed energy resources (DERs), and local loads. The project proposed hereby aims to design and implement a three phase inverter with unified control strategy for balanced as well as unbalanced ac system conditions. The unified control strategy takes into consideration the general feedback requirements for desired response and performance from the microgrid and at the same time includes a feedforward control for DC bus control .This paper deals with a PV based VSC system feeding the grid in the same context. The current work includes simulation based studies on 2 kVA grid connected voltage source converter (VSC) system for balanced grid conditions. The simulation results and bode plot for Grid connected VSC system are also presented.

18:00
S. P. Chincholkar (KITS, Ramtek, India)
Dr. J. G. Suryawanshi (VNIT, Nagpur, India)
Gasoline Direct Injection: An Efficient Technology

ABSTRACT. Most of the researchers wanted to work with diesel engine because of complexity in the gasoline engine. Author tried to review gasoline direct injection (GDI) a new technology in the gasoline engine with the objective to motivate the researchers to work with this field. This paper reviews the benefits of direct injection in the gasoline engine in terms of fuel consumption and emission. The effect of stratified and homogeneous mode on the performance parameter along with combustion system (wall guided/ spray guided and air guided), its extend feasibility and complexity in the individual and combine mode of operation is reviewed in detail. The review comes up with the need of optimization in mixture formation to reduce incylinder wall wetting, increase combustion stability, extend upto which charge cooling occurs and feasibility of stratified mode operation in GDI engine. Optical diagnostic and CFD are the tools which can help in optimizing this complex system.

18:00
Avinash Ingle (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Harshwardhan Singh (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Siva Bohm (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Sankara Sarma V. Tatiparti (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
V.S. Raja (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Graphene based electrocatalyst support in Proton exchange membrane fuel cell

ABSTRACT. In Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC), Carbon has been widely utilized as Platinum (Pt) and Pt-based electrocatalyst support for oxygen reduction reactions (ORRs). The amorphous Carbon supports undergo corrosion over time due to the harsh working conditions of the PEMFCs. The support material for the electrocatalysts is the key to the performance of the fuel cell. The performance of the catalyst can be greatly enhanced by increasing the electrochemical surface area as well as the electrical conductivity of the support material. The use of a 2D carbon nanostructure, Graphene, provides new ways to develop advanced electrocatalyst support materials for PEMFCs. Graphene is a 2D monolayer of sp2 hybridized carbon atoms which are tightly packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice. Graphene has extraordinary high electrical conductivity as well as very high electrochemical surface area as compared to carbon (Vulcan XC-72). Therefore, in the present study, graphene is synthesized as a support material by Modified Hummer’s, Liquid phase exfoliation. The synthesized graphene oxide and graphene is characterized by XRD, FEG-TEM Raman spectroscopy and FTIR spectroscopy. The electrochemical characterizations were carried out using Cyclic voltammetry in the potential range of -0.2 to 1 V vs (SCE).

18:00
Hiren Dhameliya (PDPU, India)
Palash Agrawal (PDPU, India)
Utilization of LNG cold energy

ABSTRACT. Growing energy demands across the nation has elevated the importance of Natural Gas owing to the advantages associated with it. Primary advantages offered by natural gas are the ease of production, greater availability and lower cost along with lower emissions of hazardous gases. For long distance transportation, it needs to be converted into LNG (liquefied natural gas) for ease of transportation and reducing the total cost. LNG (liquefied natural gas) is also known as green fuel due to its higher purity, higher energy density and environmental friendly advantages and thus, due to this reason the trade of LNG is becoming a new hot spot for global energy markets. Production of LNG consumes lots of energy (around 850kWh/ton) which is stored in the form of ‘Cold Energy’. During the Regasification process (for the purpose of consumption) it is generally being dumped in sea water which not only wastes the energy that can be utilized but also affects the sea creatures. India annually imports around 23 MMTPA of LNG, and this is expected to rise in the coming years. This much high amount of cold energy associated with LNG, if extracted, can impact the power demand of this power hungry country. Out of 12 major importing countries (viz. Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, China, India, Korea, UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France) only Japan (60%) and china (10%) are the only countries which are utilizing this cold energy. India having mammoth energy needs, if develops the infrastructure required for the utilisation of cold energy then it will surely decrease the dependency over coal and other fossil fuels.

This paper demonstrates how utilization of the cold energy using various methods becomes an important measure to energy saving and environmental benefits and provides feasible business opportunity.

18:00
Santoshkumar Hampannavar (SDMCET, India)
Udaykumar R.Yaragatti (National Institute of Technology Karnataka Surathkal, India)
Stochastic Model of Electric Vehicle Parking Lot Occupancy in Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)

ABSTRACT. The Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) is a concept of connecting group of electrical vehicles (EVs) to the grid for power transaction. The EVs can get connected to the grid through the charging slots available in the electrical vehicle parking lot (EVPL). The Markov chain based stochastic model is proposed for EVPL occupancy in V2G for Smart Grid application.

18:00
Kishore Mohana (IIT Hyderabad, India)
Ravikumar Bhimasingu (IIT hyderabad, India)
Refined Hybrid Microgrid Architecture for the Improvement of Voltage Profile

ABSTRACT. Hybrid microgrid architecture is emerging as a flexible and modular solution that integrates various heterogeneous energy resources and loads. This conventional architecture can also reduce the number of power conversion stages, when compared to other architectures of microgrid such as, centralized DC bus and centralized AC bus architectures. But, these conventional hybrid microgrid architectures are having poor fault tolerant capacity that leads to severe power imbalances in the microgrid system. With this aspect, this paper propose the refined hybrid architecture for microgrids that can handle system uncertainties and improves the voltage profile. The proposed refined hybrid microgrid architecture consists of two layers (AC layer and DC layer) through which each and every constituent of the microgrid is connected. This provides continuity in supply power to the microgrid loads via the bi-directional power flow between AC layer and DC layer. The proposed architecture is simulated using MATLAB/Simulink® and from the results it is observed that, this proposed architecture improves the voltage profile and provides fault tolerant capacity for the system.

18:00
B Deepanraj (National Institute of Technology, India)
V Sivasubramanian (National Institute of Technology, India)
S Jayaraj (National Institute of Technology, India)
Anaerobic Co-digestion of Food Waste with Poultry Manure for Enhanced Biogas Production

ABSTRACT. Fossil fuel resources are severely limited and their combustion is a major source for environmental pollution. As a result, scientists and researchers avidly seek alternatives to fossil fuels, and organic wastes can be a viable alternative source of energy by means of anaerobic digestion process. Out of organic wastes available, food waste contains a substantially large amount of organic matter, which can be digested anaerobically to produce biogas. In this present investigation, biogas production from anaerobic co-digestion of food waste with poultry manure was investigated in a laboratory scale batch reactor at thermophilic temperature condition for a hydraulic retention time of 30 days. The solid concentration, pH and temperature values taken in all the reactors were 7.5% of total solids, 7 pH and 50°C respectively, found as optimum value from the previous studies. The volumetric yield of biogas was noted at regular intervals (24hrs) using water displacement method. Poultry manure was co-digested with food waste from 10 to 40 % ratio. The highest cumulative biogas production obtained from the co-digestion of food waste with poultry manure was 8469 ml at co-digestion of 30% of poultry manure with 70% of food waste. The total solid, volatile solid and chemical oxygen demand removal efficiencies at the co-digestion of 30% of poultry manure were found to be higher which were 57.94, 58.83 and 50.19% respectively. The kinetic study on anaerobic co-digestion of food waste was performed using two different models namely Gompertz equation and Modified Gompertz equation. The kinetic parameters such as biogas potential of the substrate, maximum biogas production rate, lag phase of the reaction, coefficient of determination (R2) and root-mean-square error were estimated using nonlinear least-square regression with the help of MATLAB® (R2012a).

18:00
Yuvrajsinh Solanki (Nirma University, India)
Rajubhai Mewada (Institute of Technology, Nirma University, India)
Electrolysis Process in Cu-Cl Thermochemical Cycle for Hydrogen Production

ABSTRACT. Hydrogen production through renewable resources in most desirable approach. Utilization of solar energy using thermochemical cycle is one such approach for hydrogen production from water and sun energy. During five step copper chlorine cycle, electrolysis is a most crucial step. Use of non noble electrode (like graphite) is desirable. In this work we have explored the feasibility of electrolysis step for copper recovery and hydrogen production using graphite electrodes. Results are not extra ordinary but provides good stuff to work in direction of utilization of graphite electrodes for copper chlorine cycle.

18:00
Anand B Rao (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Afsal Najeeb (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Economic And Environmental Assessment Of A Rural Micro Grid

ABSTRACT. Micro grids refer to a complete system of generating and distributing energy to consumers, are seen to be an important technology tool that can supply reliable and quality power especially in areas where grid power is unreliable or unavailable. Micro grids can function independently while incrementally adding up to the electricity supply system and is an integral part of schemes and policies to expand electricity availability. But with low power demand compared to other areas, the scale in such cases, at which energy is to be generated becomes an important issue. In addition, smaller scale projects may have very high cost of energy per unit that makes it prohibitive for the people to use the service. A major question to be answered is therefore, whether a rural microgrid, with limited energy service capability can be developed as a commercial venture that can generate returns on the investment made. This study considers a solar photovoltaic based microgrid in a rural village of Maharashtra state in India and applies the net present value approach to understand this question. The change in the net present value of the project with the change in tariffs, capital expenditure and replacement costs are also studied The environmental assessment of the microgrid operation is understood by calculating the reductions in emissions that can be obtained by providing energy services from the microgrid rather than providing the same services by extending the grid.

18:00
Bhaskar Rahul Nandi (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Rangan Banerjee (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Santanu Bandyopadhyay (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Energy and Exergy Analyses in Molten Salt Based Thermocline Thermal Storage for Solar Thermal Power Plant

ABSTRACT. This paper is concerned with the investigation of the energy and exergy analyses in molten salt based dual medium single tank thermocline storage system. The three dimension model is used for the heat and fluid flow analysis. An energy analysis was performed to estimate the energy utilization and an exergy analysis was performed to determine the exergy inlet, exergy outlet, exergy losses during the charging, discharging and long storage period in terms of first and second law efficiency definitions. The energy and exergy efficiency depend on the particle size, tank dimensions, convective heat loss from system. Thermal diffusion is also influence the entropy generation in storage system. The roles of dispersion and wall heat losses are also considered for this analysis.

18:00
Goutam Khankari (Damodar Valley Corporation, India)
Jagannath Munda (Damodar Valley Corporation, India)
Sujit Karmakar (National Institute of Technology Durgapur, India)
Power Generation from Condenser Heat Loss of a Coal-fired Thermal Power Plant using Kalina Cycle

ABSTRACT. In any thermal power plant the major energy loss takes place in the condenser cooling water system. The objective of the present study is to convert this low grade waste heat from a 500 MWe subcritical coal-fired power plant into electricity by integrating Kalina Cycle System 11 (KCS 11) where water-ammonia binary mixture is used as working fluid. A thermodynamic property calculator for the binary mixture and a computer simulation programme has been developed by MS-Excel and VBA to analyse the combined cycle plant configuration and parametric optimisation based on thermodynamic modeling equations. The parametric study is carried out based on variation of ammonia mass fraction and cooling water flow rate keeping turbine inlet at saturated vapour condition. Result shows that the Kalina cycle can able to add about 13.49MWe with a net cycle efficiency of 2.58%. There is an optimum cooling water flow that yields the maximum net cycle efficiency for a particular condenser design value in the Kalina cycle. Effect of ammonia mass fraction variations in the binary mixture is also studied by keeping turbine inlet temperature fixed at 312.308K. The study shows that cycle performance improves with higher ammonia mass fraction. Effect of temperature rise across the main plant condenser increases the overall plant efficiency. Around 3.3 ton per hour of CO2 emission can be reduced due to additional power generation using condenser waste heat.

18:00
Amlan Chakrabarti (Narula Institute of Technology, India)
Chandan Kumar Chanda (IIEST, India)
Carbon Emission Savings by Reduction in Cycling Operation of Power Plants

ABSTRACT. In an analysis of live hourly data from the Indian Power Grid, it is observed that by strategic time zone divisions the peak demand can be reduced by around 5%. As the peak demand is reduced by 5%, this should result in reduction of Cycling operation of pulverized coal power plants since the renewable generation sources are not suitable for cycling operations. The Cycling operation involves starting a power plant and auxiliary energy consumption. Not having to start a few power plants saves a substantial quantity of Light Distillate Oil (LDO) and Auxiliary Energy Consumption (AEC). It also saves a substantial amount of Carbon emission which would have resulted in the process of combustion of the LDO for power plant startup and AEC. As per latest research projections, the electrical power demand of India is expected to peak around the years 2045 to 2050. There is scope for enormous savings in Carbon Emission during the next four decades by peak demand reduction using time zone divisions.

18:00
Nitin Kulkarni (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Upendra Bhandarkar (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Anand Rao (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Bhalchandra Puranik (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Experimental Investigation of Heat Loss to the Ground in Clamp Type Brick Kilns

ABSTRACT. Fired solid clay bricks have been one of the popular construction materials in India. India has more than 100,000 brick kilns which produce about 250 billion bricks annually [Rajarathnam et al., 2014]. In India, mainly two types of brick kilns are used to fire the green bricks - a Bull’s trench kiln (BTK) and a clamp kiln. It is estimated that about 70% of annual brick production in India is contributed by BTKs, about 25% by the clamps and remaining 5% by other types of kilns such as Vertical Shaft Brick Kilns (VSBK) and Zigzag kilns [Maithel et al., 2012].

Firing of bricks is an energy intensive process. Researchers have studied energy utilization in the BTKs and VSBKs [Maithel, 2003]. However, energy utilization in the clamps has not been studied and reported extensively. Thus, the present study makes an attempt to understand the energy utilization in the clamps through experimental investigation of heat loss to the ground. An experimental setup is constructed similar to the base of a typical clamp. A mild steel tank of size 1m × 1m × 1m is fabricated using mild steel sheets. The tank is filled with soil. On the top of the soil, a platform and air channel arrangement is constructed using burnt clay bricks. A coal layer of 4” thickness is arranged on the platform. The air channels, the coal platform and the coal are arranged in a manner similar to that observed in a typical clamp. The coal is covered by a layer of burnt clay bricks. This cover is further covered by a flyash layer of approximately 1” thickness. K type thermocouples and handheld infrared thermometer are used for temperature measurement in the experimental setup.

The coal is fired and the temperatures of soil at various locations are recorded at an interval of 300 seconds using thermocouples and a PC based data acquisition system. The experiment and hence the temperature recording is continued till the temperatures of the soil at various locations in the tank become equal to the ambient temperature, i.e. for approximately 75 hours. The temperatures at various locations on the sidewalls, which are arranged around the coal layer, are also recorded, at regular intervals, using the handheld infrared thermometer.

In addition to the measurement of the temperatures, physical and thermal properties of the soil used in the experiment and the calorific value of the coal used in the experiment are determined experimentally. Heat flux to the soil, due to combustion of coal, is calculated using two different approaches namely: one dimensional heat conduction near the top of the soil and transient heat transfer analysis using a semi-infinite solid model for heat transfer to the soil. Overall heat loss to the soil is estimated using various values of porosity and thermal properties of the soil. These values of can be used to study the energy utilization in the clamps that are erected on various ground conditions.

References

•Maithel, S. (2003). Energy Utilization in Brick kilns. Ph.D. Thesis, IIT Bombay

•Maithel, S., Lalchandani, D., Malhotra, G., Bhanware, P., Uma, R. Ragavan, S., Athalye, Ms. V., Bindiya, K. R., Reddy, S., Bond, T., Weyant, C., Baum, E., Thoa, V. T. K., Phuong, N. T. & Thanh, T. C. K. (2012). Brick kilns performance assessment. http://www.unep.org/ccac/Portals/50162/docs/Brick_Kilns_Performance_Assessment.pdf

•Rajarathnam, U., Athalye, V., Ragavan, S., Maithel, S., Lalchandani, D., Kumar, S., Baum, A., Weyant, C. & Bond, T. (2014). Assessment of air pollutant emissions from brick kilns. Atmospheric Environment. 98. p. 549-553. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.08.075

18:00
Jigar Chaudhari (Gujarat Technological university, India)
Utpal Joshi (Gujarat University, India)
Synthesis and physical properties of low cost, non toxic, earth abundant P-type CuInS2 thin film as absorber layer for photovoltaic application

ABSTRACT. Copper Indium disulfide (CIS) thin films were synthesized by chemical solution deposition method on glass substrates. Low processing temperatures of 420 C under nitrogen annealing is key feature of this study. Surface structures and morphology of the synthesized CIS thin films studied by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy, respectively, revealed a phase pure growth and smooth morphology with average crystallite sizes of the order of 2.97 nm. Hall Effect study demonstrates that synthesized CIS thin film is P-type with holes as majority charge carriers. Temperature dependence of optical band gap was studied in the wavelength range of 200-1400 nm and was found to decrease with increasing temperature. Detailed results on synthesis and physical properties will be presented.

18:00
Mamillapalli Lalithya (JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, India)
Pedaprolu Himaja (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University College of Engineering Hyderabad, India)
Mudholker Ankush (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University College of Engineering Hyderabad, India)
Askani Jaya Laxmi (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University College of Engineering Hyderabad, India)
IMPLEMENTATION OF SOLAR POWERED DC PUMPING SYSTEM FOR IRRIGATION

ABSTRACT. In recent years, with the increase in the energy shortage around the world and the continuous increase in the level of greenhouse gas emission, the use of various sources of renewable energy is increasingly becoming important for sustainable development. Solar energy is considered to be one of the most eminent sources of energy, due to its clean and renewable characteristics. Solar water pumping is a promising renewable alternative to conventional water pumping for large, medium and small power applications. Solar water pumping systems incorporate a cost-effective alternative to irrigation pump sets that run on grid electricity. Solar Photovoltaic sets constitute an environment-friendly and low-maintenance possibility for pumping irrigation water. This system is useful in remote areas where electricity is not available and it is very expensive to lay long transmission lines. This paper deals with solar powered water pumping system and comparison of performance of AC motor with DC motor for pumping systems. Simulation is carried out by using equivalent circuit of photovoltaic array, MPPT, motor and pump load. System performances are investigated under different levels of solar isolation. Practical modelling of best pumping system is done.

18:00
Kothapalli Rama Krishna (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad College of Engineering, India)
Thelika Yakanna (JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, India)
Mudholker Ankush (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad College of Engineering, India)
Askani Jaya Laxmi (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad College of Engineering, India)
Implementation of DC Lighting and Fan loads in a Solar Powered Home

ABSTRACT. In India about 70% of the population lives in rural areas. The basic electrical power needed for rural areas are lighting and fans but a heavy load shedding will result in power loss for longer period of time. The present power crisis is due to day to day increasing power demand on grid and seasonal variations. Hence, it requires power from an alternative energy source. India is blessed with solar energy, which is omnipresent in almost all parts of the country, but for smaller power capacity Solar Photo-Voltaic (SPV) panels seems the finest option. The SPV system converts light energy into Direct Current (DC) power using photovoltaic effect. A very high number of energy efficient appliances are operating directly on DC. This offers the potential to use DC directly from solar energy, thereby avoiding the losses inherent in converting power to Alternating Current (AC) and again back to DC. This paper deals with operating of appliances at higher voltages of 48 Volts (V), reducing the power loss due to high currents in low voltage applications. The work includes practical implementation of DC lights and Fans with SPV and the results obtained are compared with the AC system

18:00
Farjana J Sonia (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Manoj K. Jangid (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Balakrishna Ananthoju (IITB-Monash Research Academy, India)
Ravi Kali (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
M Aslam (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Amartya Mukhopadhyay (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Electrochemical Behavior and Stress Developments in Few Layers Graphene during Lithiation/Delithiation

ABSTRACT. Even though graphitic carbon is still the most commonly used anode material for Li-ion batteries, recent research have indicated that its two dimensional building block, viz. graphene may possess even higher Li-capacity. However, the mechanism of lithiation/delithiation and the mechanical integrity of graphene upon Li-storage in it is not yet well known. Therefore, using few layer graphene (FLG) as model material, an attempt is made here to establish a better understanding of the inter-related phenomena concerning lithiation/delithiation mechanisms leading to higher capacity, stress developments at different state of charges and mechanical integrity. The FLG (~ 7 layers) films were deposited on Cu foil via chemical vapor deposition at 1000 deg. Celsius using methane gas as precursor gas. Large area growth of fairly well-ordered graphene films were confirmed by different characterization techniques, e.g. XRD, FTIR, XPS, Raman spectroscopy, SEM, AFM and TEM. The electrochemical performances of FLG were studied via galvanostatic charging/discharging and cyclic voltammetry against metallic Li in a custom-made electrochemical cell. Simultaneously, real-time (in-situ) monitoring of the dimensional changes and stress developments in the active FLG films were performed using multi-beam optical stress sensor (MOSS). Potential plateaus corresponding to the co-existences of Li-GICs were observed for the FLG films which indicate that the Li-storage in FLG have contributions from mechanisms similar to that in bulk graphitic carbon. Moreover, a high reversible capacity of ~ 2 μAh/cm2 at a current density of 2.7 μA/cm2 has been observed in the FLG electrodes, which is nearly an order of magnitude greater than that expected for bulk graphitic carbon, along with good rate capability. Interestingly, the net in-plane stress development that was recorded upon full lithiation of FLG matches reasonably well with the amount of stress, expected to be developing for the case of classical Li-intercalation in the inter-planner gallery of the graphene film (i.e. LiC6 formation). These observations tend to indicate that the excess Li-capacity might be associated the surface, edge planes or defect sites, which however leads to comparatively much less dimensional changes. Another interesting phenomenon observed in stress profile of FLG was the stress release at a potential window of 0.5-0.25V (against Li/Li+), where pristine graphene, dilute stages I and IV co-exist. Such stress release is believed to be associated with the mechanical degradation taking place during the initial stage of lithiation and later stages of delithiation as a result of possible stretching of individual graphene layers due to Li-insertion at such states of charges beyond fracture strain. Degradation based on the presently proposed mechanism will be more severe near the edge planes and defect sites; and this is presently under investigation. Nevertheless, in addition to the evidences from Raman spectra and SEM images, the present hypothesis has been supported by a geometric model, trying to estimate the strains in individual graphene layers at various stages of lithiation, as a function of distance of top most graphene layer from the current collector.

18:00
Subhasish Das (NIT Meghalaya, India)
Sanat Kumar (SRM University, India)
Dr. Biplab Kumar Debnath (National Institute of Technology Meghalaya, India)
CFD Analysis of Combustion in a Wankel Engine in the Presence of Porous Media

ABSTRACT. The invention of internal combustion engine has expedited the mode of transportation world. However, in order to maximize the efficiency of an engine, the technology has always been needed to be updated. High power output, less frictional loss, low vibration, and compact design are some of the points where Wankel engine has an edge over the reciprocating engine. Till date, the application of porous material is found to be one of the most effective tool for improved performance of the reciprocating SI engine in comparison to the normal one. The present work is emphasized on the computational analysis of combustion in a rotary Wankel SI engine at the top dead centre (TDC) by the application of porous material at the rotor recess. This is performed by using software tool ANSYS 14.0. Silicon Carbide (SiC), having good thermal shock resistance, mechanical strength, conductive heat transport and high melting point is considered as the porous material. The effect of different parameters such as thermal stress, pressure distribution, temperature variation and flame propagation of porous material on the combustion is considered in the study. Simulation results of rotary engine with porous media shows enhanced combustion efficiency in comparison to normal IC engine.

18:00
Gargee Pise (PCCOE, Pune, India)
Ashok Pise (Directorate of technical education, India)
Sanjay Salve (PCCOE, Pune, India)
Investigation of Solar Heat Pipe Collector Using Nanofluid And Surfactant

ABSTRACT. The basic aim of conducted experiments was to investigate the thermal performance of serpentine shape thermosyphon heat pipe flat plate solar collector under real operating conditions. Distil water, (Al2O3 - water) nanofluid with varying concentrations (0.05, 0.25 and 0.5 by wt ) , (Al2O3 -water) + surfactant , water + surfactant were used as working fluids. Effect of coolant rate, concentration of nanomaterial on performance of solar heat pipe collector was studied experimentally for different tilt angles. Collector was tested for tilt angles (18.53, 33.5, 40, 50 and 60˚) Nanofluids of Al2O3 nanoparticles by wt having average size <50 nm dispersed in water with different concentrations by two step process. Two step process comprising of magnetic string and ultra sonication is used. Surfactant (0.01wt % SDS) was added to enhance stability of nanoparticle in water. From results it is observed that as the efficiency of the collector increases as coolant flow rate increases upto certain limit, then decreases. Also similar trend was observed for tilt angle and it is found maximum at 50˚. Surfactant , Surfactant-Nanofluids , nanofluids as working fluid in the heat pipe collector gives better performance as compared to pure water and performance enhances with increase in the concentration of the nanofluid.

18:00
Sweta Shriniwasan (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Nikhil Gor (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Sankara Sarma V Tatiparti (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Hydrogen sorption mechanism of magnesium (hydride)

ABSTRACT. Magnesium (hydride) is a potential hydrogen storage material with a high gravimetric capacity (7.6 wt. %). However, its kinetics of absorption/desorption (‘sorption’) is slow, thereby hindering its practical applicability. Slow kinetics can be improved by particle size reduction, change in particle morphology and addition of catalysts. However, it is necessary to understand the sorption mechanism in order to implement these improvements to the Mg(H2) sorption kinetics. Hence, the sorption mechanism of the growing phase is studied using the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogrov (JMAK) equation represented as α = 1–exp(–k(t^n)), where α is the converted fraction of the growing phase and n indicates the growth dimensionality of the growing phase (growing phase: MgH2 during absorption and Mg during desorption). The n values decrease with time. Intermittent cross-sectional microscopic images of the powders during sorption are observed to complement the JMAK analysis. These intermittent images show increase in depth and coverage of the growing phase with time as a result of random nucleation and growth leading to core (unreacted region) - shell (transformed region) structure as observed in Fig. 1(b). Hydride growth mechanism in Mg (~44 µm) at several temperatures (180-250 °C) was investigated through hydrogen sorption experiments at 1 MPa (Fig. 1(a)). The growth dimensionality (n) is estimated using JMAK equation. Estimation of the interface velocities (U) yields two regimes of high and low velocities with at least one order of magnitude in velocities. An estimation of the diffusion coefficients (D) using the Fick’s 2nd law suggests a difference of at least 4 orders of magnitude in these two regimes. The diffusion coefficients in the lower velocity regime matches with the expected values of the diffusion coefficients for H-atom diffusion through hydride in literature. The estimated activation energy for H-atom diffusion through hydride is ~91 kJ/mol H and is close reported value of 100±10 kJ/mol H in literature.

Fig. 1 (a) Hydrogen absorption curves at several temperatures and 1 MPa, (b) Cross-sectional SEM image after 300 min of hydrogen sorption at 210 °C (core-shell structure formation).

Desorption of MgH2 (~10 µm) is studied at 350 and 400 °C under vacuum (Fig. 2(a)). The estimated diffusion coefficients (D) suggests that the growth of Mg can be governed by nucleation and interfacial growth followed by H-atom diffusion through transformed Mg and existing hydride phase. The growth mechanism investigated using the n-U-D analysis and supporting microscopic images suggest hydride/Mg growth through interfacial movement in the higher velocity regime followed by growth facilitated by H-atom diffusion through hydride/metal phases in the lower velocity regime. Through this analysis, interfacial growth can be distinguished from diffusional growth.

Fig. 2 (a) Hydrogen desorption curves at 350 and 400 °C in vacuum, (b) TEM images of partially desorbed MgH2 for 11 min at 350 and 400 °C.

18:00
Vighnesha Nayak (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
Rashmi G S (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
Parashuram Chitragar (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
Mohanan Padmanabha (National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India)
Combustion Characteristics and Cyclic variation of a LPG fuelled MPFI Four cylinder Gasoline Engine

ABSTRACT. During the last decade, a gaseous fuel such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has been widely used in commercial vehicles, and promising results have been obtained from the fuel economy. Among the alternatives suggested were hydrogen, methane and LPG (mainly propane). Present study deals with to investigate the effect of dual mode of operation on combustion characteristics of engine and cyclic variation in a modified multi-cylinder SI engine. Experiments will be conducted with baseline gasoline and later with dual fuel mode of experiments i.e., gasoline with LPG with different ratios (25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of LPG by mass). For the conversion of dual fuel mode operation gasoline injector should be switch off by giving the faulty signal and switch on the LPG injector, so that cylinder will work in LPG mode of operation and remaining will work in gasoline mode. During this stage, experiment will be carried out with varying speed from 2000 rpm to 4500 rpm in steps of 500 rpm at full load condition with factory set static ignition timing of 5 deg. bTDC to investigate combustion characteristics and cyclic variations.

Results revealed that as the LPG percentage increases the peak pressure also increases and it is maximum for 100% LPG for all the speed. Since IMEP getting inside the combustion chamber is more as well as flame speed is high for LPG therefore maximum peak pressure will occur. At 4500 rpm the percentage increase in peak pressure is 20% for LPG, 9% for 25%LPG+75%Petrol, 3% for 50%LPG+50%Petrol, 1% for 75%LPG+25%Petrol when compared to gasoline at full load. This increase in peak pressure will indicate the LPG will give better combustion properties compared to that of gasoline. Figure 1-6 shows the variation cylinder pressure with respect to crank angle for different speeds. But at lower speed the percentage increase in the peak pressure is very less. Figures 7 and 8 respectively show the variation of the maximum cylinder pressure of each cycle (Pmax) and IMEP of each cycle for 100 consecutive combustion cycles with gasoline fuel. It is clear from the figures that there is considerable variation in the pressure related parameters for the same operating conditions from one cycle to another. Compared to peak pressure, the variation in cycle to cycle for IMEP is less.Net heart release rate shows that gasoline will give the more heat release compare to all other fuels, but LPG will release the heat little earlier than gasoline. Since peak pressure is near to TDC for LPG which results in NHRR to occur earlier than gasoline. Also Mean gas temperature plots revealed that LPG will have higher temperature than gasoline. Final outcome of the research is LPG will have better combustion properties compared to gasoline but cyclic fluctuations are more for LPG.

18:00
Anbarasan Tamilalagan (Government College of Technology, India)
Jayanthi Singaram (Government College of Technology, India)
Yasmin Regina (Government College of Technology, India)
INVESTIGATION ON SYNTHESIS OF BIODIESEL FROM DISTILLERY SPENT WASH USING OLEAGINOUS YEAST Metschnikowia pulcherrima

ABSTRACT. Bio-diesel is one of the renewable sources of energy, obtained from trans-esterification of oils with alcohols to produce an ester similar in composition to petroleum diesel. As an alternative source of energy, it gets its source from vegetable oils, plant oils, animal fats, waste cooking oils and microbial lipids. The project aims to observe the efficiency of producing bio-diesel from the oleaginous yeasts from distillery waste water. In this study, Distillery spent wash is used as a substrate for growing oleaginous yeast Metschnikowia pulcherrima. Distillery waste is one of the most recalcitrant wastes with high BOD, inorganic solids, dissolved solids and low pH. High acidic nature of spent wash is not suitable for other oleaginous yeasts except M. pulcherrima.. Isolation of microbial lipids from M. pulcherrima and biodiesel synthesis from lipids was studied. 0.5 g/L lipid yield obtained from distillery spent wash in the optimum conditions of pH-6.0, 25ᴼC temperature and 160 rpm in shaking conditions. After trans-esterification of isolated lipids, the sample was analyzed by FTIR for conforming the presence of ester groups. The analysis revealed multiple esters of PUFA. The bio-diesel production can be enhanced by disrupting the metabolic pathway to achieve higher lipid production necessary for bio-diesel production.

18:00
Saumya Anand (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Anand Rao (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India)
Models for Deployment of Solar PV Lighting Applications in Rural India

ABSTRACT. Promotion of solar energy is one of the major steps taken by the Government of India in its pursuit of sustainable development in recent years. Inspite of the growth in electricity generation capacity reaching to 272.5 GW [1], 75.02 million households, mainly in rural areas, are not yet electrified. Out of these, 72.4 million rural households use kerosene as primary lighting source whereas, only 0.92 million rural households use solar energy as primary lighting source [2]. Although solar PV lighting applications are better alternative in terms of quality of illumination, durability and versatility of use, there has been limited success with the deployment of this technology. This study has analyzed various business models for deployment of solar PV lighting applications to identify the determinants of success and failure in rural areas. The study is based on case studies, survey and interaction with various stakeholders. A variety of socio-economic, technical and market barriers have been identified. Those included are individual ownership models (Kattiwada in Madhya Pradesh, Hadi in Sindhudurg, Chavani in Raigad and SELCO) and fee for service models (Amle in Palghar and Darewadi in Pune). The study shows that the major factors affecting the deployment of solar PV applications in rural areas are: the presence of local market for SPV based products to create linkage between energy service providers and beneficiaries, availability of innovative financing mechanism to make product/ service affordable to the customers, awareness among people w.r.t. SPV or other renewable energy technology, the reputation of vendor (or NGO) in the respective region which drives the acceptance of the product/service, and willingness to pay for the product and its maintenance. Although an initial capital subsidy helps in acceptance of SPV product/ service, the sustained use of product/service is observed only when the users contributed fully or substantially towards the same. The lessons from the study can be extended to similar situations for other applications of solar PV technology (e.g. water pumping) or other renewable energy technologies.

REFERENCES [1] CEA (2015). All India Installed Capacity (in MW) of Power Stations, Ministry of Power GoI, http://www.cea.nic.in/installed_capacity.html, Last accessed on 07/07/2015 [2] Census (2011). Population Census 2011, http://www.census2011.co.in/, Last accessed on 30/06/2015

18:00
Kaustubh Chavan (Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai, India, India)
Jitendra Satpute (Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai, India, India)
Nitin Gulhane (Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai, India, India)
Dhanaji Kale (Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India, India)
Sudhir Panse (Institute of Chemical Technology, India)
Effect of Extended Surfaces and Fluid Structure Interaction on the Performance of Triangular Receiver using Compound Parabolic Concentrator

ABSTRACT. Solar energy is a clean and promising renewable source of energy having huge potential to fulfil the future energy requirement. Comparative study of triangular receiver (TR) with and without extended surfaces using compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) systems is presented in this paper. The CPC is introduce in this system in order to concentrate solar radiations on the receiver surfaces. The extended surfaces (square fins and Y fin) and TR are made up of aluminum to promote heat transfer between receiver surface and working fluid. The thermal performance with and without fins configurations of TR are investigated numerical simulation and experimentally during outdoor test conditions. The experimental study is accomplished to explore the thermal performance characteristics of TR under concentrated solar radiations. To study fluid structure interaction (FSI) phenomenon requires modeling of fluid flow and solid structures interaction with an internal fluid. This phenomenon is helpful to examine effect of solar fluxes on TR surfaces. The present work investigates crucial study of structural deformation and stress concentration for different mass flow rates of water during higher solar fluxes. The structural analysis is taken into account to investigate effect of temperature distribution and mass flow rate of water on TR. The result shows that substantial enhancement in thermal performance of TR with fin arrangement.

18:00
S. Rajathi (Thiagarajar College of Engineering, India)
R. Vasuki (Thiagarajar College of Engineering, India)
N. Sankarasubramanian (Thiagarajar College of Engineering, India)
M. Senthamizhselvi (Thiagarajar College of Engineering, India)
PREPARATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ZINC DOPED CdS THIN FILMS FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC APPLICATIONS

ABSTRACT. Zinc doped Cadmium Sulfide (CdZnS) thin films were deposited onto glass substrates from alkaline solutions containing Cadmium Chloride, Zinc Chloride and Thiourea at different deposition temperature (325˚ to 450˚ C). These films were characterized using X-ray diffraction, UV-visible spectroscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy techniques. Using the X-ray diffraction spectra the lattice parameter, grain size, average grain, number of crystallites per unit area and dislocation density are calculated and revealed cubic crystal structure of the Zinc doped CdS films. With increase in film thickness the optical band gap was found to be decreased from 2.98 to 2.44 eV. It was observed that presence of small amount of cadmium results in marked changes in the optical band gap of ZnS. The range of band gap energy for the mixed films may be helpful in designing a suitable window material in fabrication of solar cells. The transmittance of the Zinc doped CdS films were found in the range of 55 to 75%. The CdZnS thin films exhibited the particle size in the range of 40 – 250 nm. A comparison of the results revealed that Zinc doped CdS thin films prepared at lower temperature improves transmittance and makes them suitable for application as window layer of CdTe/CIGS solar cells.

18:00
Rajesh Kumar (IIR ROORKEE, India)
R. P. Gakkhar (IIT ROORKEE, India)
Influence of injection timing and nozzle opening pressure on the combustion, performance and emission analysis of small CI engine fueled with biodiesel

ABSTRACT. Abstract: The demand of renewable products is increasing due to fierce depletion of fossil fuels. On the other side fuel economy and air pollution control are two challenging issues for the world. A major part of the pollution is generated by industrial resources and vehicular emission. As the fossil fuels are depleting at an alarming rate to avoid the crises of fuel, bio fuels are the only hope. Biodiesel is the alternative fuel used as the replacement of diesel in CI engines. High viscosity and density of biodiesel is main problem of using biodiesel in directly in diesel engines. These properties of biodiesel directly affect the injection system of engine which results poor combustion in combustion chamber. In the present study biodiesel is prepared using waste cooking oil collected from institute cafeteria. The combustion, performance and emission from a water cooled variable speed DI engine was observed by varying the injection timing and nozzle opening pressure of the injection system. In case of bio diesel there is slight increase in engine performance brake thermal efficiency and brake specific fuel consumption. CO, HC and smoke are decreased while a slight increase in NOx emission. For advance injection timing and higher nozzle opening pressure better combustion is observed for different blends of biodiesel.

18:00
Suchith Chellappan (National Institute of Technology, Calicut, India)
Sajith V (National Institute of Technology, Calicut, India)
Aparna K (National Institute of Technology, Calicut, India)
Study of Kinetic Models for Trans-esterification Reaction using Heterogeneous Catalysts

ABSTRACT. The main impetus of this review is to understand, the kinetic studies and simulations made in the field of trans-esterification of fats and oils to bio-diesel .The study mainly concentrates on heterogeneous catalyst catalyzed reaction. Papers related to trans-esterification using modular reactors, trans-esterification using HPA’s are studied mainly. The basic understanding of kinetics of a trans-esterification reaction is done by obtaining the kinetic model of the process using KOH catalyst .The kinetic models are validated using experimental data’s obtained from various sources using MATLAB software. The equilibrium shift due to heterogeneous catalyst is studied extensively

18:00
Mohammed Samdani Shaik (IIT Madras, Chennai, India)
Raghuram Chetty (IIT Madras, Chennai, India)
Rahul Marathe (IIT Madras, Chennai, India)
Framework for a Sustainable Rural Electrification System: A Socio-technical System Approach

ABSTRACT. Distributed Generation (DG) offers a cost effective and valuable alternative to conventional generation of electricity for rural electrification (RuE) especially in the remote areas [1]. However an assessment of the scientific literature [2] on empirical evaluation of DG systems shows that most of these projects could not sustain because of a number of reasons. A new Design–Execute–Control (DEC) framework, based on the concept of Socio-technical System [3], is developed for the purpose of identifying the root cause for the failure of DG-based RuE projects. We suggest that evaluation should always begin with assessing the original ‘Design’ of the project, which can act as a reference frame for assessing the sustainability of the project. We applied our framework to evaluate a set of Decentralized Distributed Generation (DDG) projects of the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyuteekaran Yojana (RGGVY) scheme, and analyzed their design documents such as Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) and contract agreements. Our analysis revealed that the design mechanisms employed were imitating those of centralized systems and were not suitably adapted to the characteristics of the DG systems. We infer that the adoption of inappropriate and inadequate design mechanisms may lead to the failure of RuE projects.

18:00
Adarsh Gajmal (Sardar Patel College of Engineering, India)
Kunal Bhavsar (Sardar Patel College of Engineering, India)
CFD investigation of air velocity and temperature distribution in a room equipped with active chilled beams

ABSTRACT. Air flow distribution inside the room was studied by numerical simulation of a full scale room ventilated by active chilled beams. The test room with dimensions of 5.4 X 4.2 X 2.5 m [1] was considered for the present study. The geometric model was created using ANSYS® Design Modeler and then meshed in Meshing module. Mass, momentum, energy and turbulence conservation equations were solved using fluent commercial flow solver. RNG k-e based model with standard wall functions was applied to calculate air flow velocities and air temperature in the model room. Two thermal manikins, desk computers, displays and windows were taken as heat sources. Post processing was carried out in standard ANSYS® CFD post-processor. This study deals with the numerical investigation of impact of supplied flow rate of primary air and heat load strength on thermal environment developed in occupied zone by active chilled beams. From results it is observed that the temperature was almost uniform in the occupied zone. The draught risk increased when heat load in the room and flow rate of supplied primary air increased. The flow rate of primary air have bigger impact on occupants comfort in comparison with the impact of heat load.

18:00
Vijay Babu Pamshetti (IIT (BHU) Varansi, India)
S.P Singh (Indian Institute of Technology BHU Varanasi, India)
Optimal Placement of DG in Distribution network for Power loss minimization using NLP & PLS Technique

ABSTRACT. A new application of General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) software has been reported in this paper to determine the load flow solution for both radial and mesh distribution network. With interfacing of GAMS and MATLAB, optimal sitting and sizing of Distributed Generator (DG) in radial/mesh distribution systems is efficiently done in order to reduce power loss and improvement of voltage profile in distribution systems. The results are obtained on IEEE 33-bus and IEEE 69-bus radial distribution systems and also compared with other existing methods. The test results demonstrate that the proposed method produced comparable results in respect of loss reduction, improvement in voltage profile and computational time.

18:00
Nikhil Ingle (PCCOE, Pune, India)
Sanjay Lakade (PCCOE, Pune, India)
Design and development of downdraft biomass gasifier of 20kWth capacity to generate producer gas

ABSTRACT. Utilisation of waste is the need of hour today. The waste which cannot be degraded by bio-chemical route like agricultural waste, wood waste can be converted into useful fuel through the process called Gasification. Gasification is a thermo-chemical process which converts solid biomass into a mixture of combustible gases that can be used in various applications. In this project, a prototype of downdraft gasifier is designed and developed of 20 kWth capacity for generating producer gas for fulfilling heating requirement of a heat treatment furnace. Wood blocks of varying sizes are used as a feed stock in the gasifier. The performance characteristics of the gasifier are studied at different air flow rates. A reduction in the overall cost for replacing fuel oil and LPG is estimated. Performance of gasifier with other feed stocks such as agricultural waste briquettes is checked and their results are compared. It is found that wood block of size less than 50mm has highest calorific value of 3.978 MJ/Nm3.

18:00
Jaspal Singh (Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, India)
Satyabrata Mohapatra (Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, India)
Enhanced photocatalytic activity of Ag–TiO2 hybrid nanostructures prepared by a facile wet chemical method

ABSTRACT. Abstract: In this work we developed Ag nanoparticles modified TiO2 nanoparticle aggregates for sun light driven photocatalysis by a facile wet chemical method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Raman spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy and UV-visible absorption spectroscopy were used to study the structural, optical, and photocatalytic properties of the hybrid nanostructures. The photocatalytic activities of the Ag-TiO2 hybrid nanostructures were examined in the degradation of methylene blue and methyl orange dyes in water under sun light. We found that the Ag-TiO2 nanostructures prepared with highest silver concentration exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity. The results indicated that decoration with Ag nanoparticles is responsible for the higher photocatalytic activity of Ag-TiO2 hybrid nanostructures as it improves the separation of photogenerated electrons and holes. The mechanism of photocatalytic activity of Ag-TiO2 nanostructures is tentatively proposed.

18:00
Hari Gopi (CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI) - Madras unit, India)
Santoshkumar D. Bhat (CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI) - Madras unit, India)
Akhila Kumar Sahu (CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI) - Madras unit, India)
Development of anion exchange membrane from polyvinyl alcohol functionalized with quaternary ammonium groups via flexible alkyl spacers.

ABSTRACT. Hydroxide ions conducting solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) are becoming important materials for electrochemical technology. Anion exchange membranes (AEMs) are the key materials for electrochemical devices such as fuel cells; electrolyzers etc., and serve as a counterpart to proton exchange membrane. Chloromethylation and quaternization of aromatic polymers is a widely used and accepted method for the preparation of AEMs. One of the main limitations of using aromatic polymers is its chemical instability at longer runs due to the degradation of backbone by nucleophilic attack of OH- ion. Herein we attempt to develop AEM from an aliphatic polymer (PVA) to address the issue of nucleophilic attack. Aliphatic polymers are directly quaternized unlike the aromatic polymers which undergo chloromethylation in addition to quaternization. In the present study, a series of AEMs are prepared from polyvinyl alcohol via flexible alkyl spacer group in different weight percentages with respect to PVA. The fabricated membrane was further cross-linked and studied for its ionic conductivity, ion exchange capacity and water uptake.

18:00
Anupama Singh (IIT Patna, India)
Dr. Papia Raj (IIT Patna, India)
Sustainable Recycling Model for Municipal Solid Wastes in Patna

ABSTRACT. Abstract: Sustainable development is one of the major concerns for developing nations to preserve their ecological balance along with economical growth. It has been noticed that economical growth results in environmental degradation as it influences lifestyle practices and leads to increased consumption of goods thus generating large volume of Municipal Solid Waste. Patna, the capital city of Bihar, is an ideal example of this condition. Here Central and local Government and pollution committees fail to effectively tackle the large and increasing volume of MSW. Such scenario of Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) in the city can cause serious health hazards, environmental degradation and ecological destruction. Recycling the inorganic fraction of MSW can reduce the threat. In present study, based on an extensive literature review we propose a theoretical Sustainable Recycling Model for Patna. This model is based on the recommendations provided for achieving sustainable development and its similarities with sustainable recycling. We contend that if this proposed model is effectively applied then we can efficiently address the problem of MSW.

20:00-22:00Dinner