Dr. G. Praveen Kumar has been awarded with Best Mentor “DRONACHARYA” AWARD"

 

"NAVARACHANAA 2018"

To provide a platform to students is an innovation itself. The stage provides students to showcase their hidden talents, ideas and builds up their confidence. Also, it depicts their work and zeal to do something for the nation.

Navarachanaa, A step towards Innovation was such a platform provided to the students nationwide. It was a National Project Competition held at SVVV, Indore, M.P in which more than 120 teams participated from all over India and presented their projects. Out of the whole participation only 35 teams qualified the 1^st round that was on 6^th April, 2018. These teams on the 2^nd day i.e. on 7^th April, 2018 presented again in Round 2.

I am happy to share you that two of our B.Tech Power system Engineering (VI Semester) students, Ms. Tanishka Agarwal & Mr. Ayush Goyal have achieved “EKLAVYA AWARD” for their outstanding performance in Project Prototype Competition in ‘Swatchh Bharat’ theme of ‘Navarachanaa 2018’ National Project Competition held at Indore on 6-7th April 2018.

They also won the first prize in competition with a cash award of Rs. 51,000/- (Rupees Fifty one thousand)

Along with this, mentor Dr. G. Praveen Kumar has been awarded with Best Mentor “DRONACHARYA” AWARD”.

 

 

Utilization of Biomass in Rural Areas

Biomass is defined as carbonaceous matter that can be used to meet both primary and secondary energy requirements. Biomass is utilized for generating heat and to drive engines since ages. But this outmoded method of burning wood, organic residue etc is not environmentally beneficial as it releases smoke as well as volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere. Newer technologies have been introduced for converting biomass into electricity thus emphasizing on ‘Carbon Neutral’ characteristic of biomass. About 70% of India’s population depends on biomass for its existence. The potential for power generation from biomass is 48,000 MW.

Biomass is majorly classified into three forms namely – Energy crops, Natural Vegetative Growth and Organic Waste and Residue. Biomass includes coconut shells, groundnut shells, coffee waste, jute waste, bagasse, municipal solid waste, municipal liquid waste etc.

The government of India has realized the potential of biomass in Indian context and has started numerous programmes to foster biomass conversion technologies to be used in various sectors. Government is also instrumental in setting up biomass power and co-generation projects. Till date, a total of 500 such projects have been implemented. Government of India along with private partnerships is also providing central financial assistance, fiscal incentives and subsidies. India has over 5940 MW biomass based power plants out of which 4946 is grid connected and the rest is Off-grid.  Biomass power and co-generation programme is implemented by the government for optimum utilization of biomass for power generation. The states leading in setting up of biomass based power plants are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu etc. Still, there exist some areas that have to be pondered upon for faster realization of biomass conversion technologies like absence of organized formal biomass markets, inefficiencies in handling and managing the biomass, insufficient information on different types of biomass.

Biomass availability is head and shoulders above in rural areas as compared to urban areas. There is seasonal availability of large quantity of stubble along with continuous availability of animal waste and natural vegetative growth. Setting up of community based biogas plants is a ginormous step in this direction. The viability of biogas plant depends upon the local environment in which it operates. It is also necessary to ensure proper maintenance of the same. Availability of biomass increases during certain months in a year, introduction of storage technologies for the excess biogas produced can help to meet future requirements when the availability is minimal. Biomass should be purchased from organized formal biomass markets set up by government to ensure continuous availability of biomass.  Unutilized and waste lands can be used to grow switchgrass or willow trees for energy generation. Switchgrass is grown for feed or to reduce soil erosion. It can be cofired along with coal in thermal power plants for generating electricity. This will result in production of 35MW of electrical power, enough to serve about 30,000 homes.

There are numerous benefits of setting up biomass based power plants in rural areas like creating enormous employment opportunities, extra income for the formers from the energy crops in the waste land, meeting distributed load requirements, and extra electricity can be transferred to the grid to meet country’s power requirements.

Investigation of particle level kinetic modeling for babul wood pyrolysis Praveen

ABSTRAC T

To design a large-scale pyrolysis reactor, a complete particle level model was developed using pyrolysis of babul wood. Babul wood, the abundant woody biomass in India, is a highly reactive and promising feedstock for pyrolysis and considered as a case study in the present work. Thermo-balance was used to devolatilize the wood particles at different heating rates from (10 to 20 K min−1), thereby estimate the intrinsic kinetics parameters. Non-condensable gases released from wood pyrolysis were also modeled and derived the kinetic parameters. Large wood single particle dimension of L/D ∼3.5 was chosen to investigate the pyrolysis reaction and de- veloped a particle level model which involves both heat transfer and chemical reactions phenomena. Particle model developed was simulated with intrinsic kinetic parameters generated from kinetic models. Two-step consecutive model with different reaction orders (m=1, n=2) was found to explain the experimental data very well. Additionally, optimum conditions for maximum product yields and detail characterization of bio-oil was carried out using different analytical techniques.

E-mail address: gpkumar@ddn.upes.ac.in (P. Ghodke).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2018.09.084

Stabilization of pyrolysis oil: Comparison of reactive distillation and reactive chromatography

A B S T R A C T

The present study, evaluates the applicability of reactive distillation and reactive chromatography for stabilization of bio-oil, obtained from pyrolysis of wood. Bio-oil, along with several oxygenated organic compounds, contains substantial amounts of carboxylic acids (e.g., acetic acid, 5–10%). The presence of acids results in a shorter shelf life of bio-oil, as it catalyzes condensation reactions of furfural-like components leading to an increase in viscosity over a time period. Thus, we investigate the ability of multifunctional reactor for stabilization of bio-oil through esterification of acid with suitable alcohol in the presence of ion-exchange resin catalyst. Reactive distillation is performed at higher a temperature which is dictated by the bubble point of the mixture, reactive chromatography allows one to perform reaction at relatively low temperatures and with lower alcohols. It results in an improvement in the characteristic properties of bio-oil, thereby increasing the shelf life. The main limitation of this approach is that the catalyst used for esterification also catalyzes simultaneous polymerization of furfural-like components which deactivate the catalyst. Deactivation of Amberlyst-15 with ethanol after 20 h of continuous run in a fixed-bed chromatographic-reactor was found to be less compared to RD making RC a promising candidate for this particular application.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0255270115300672

10.1016/j.cep.2015.07.016

Nano Based Synthesis of PV Panels for Minimizing E-Waste

Abstract

The globally growing solar panel deployment will result into huge solar panel waste in the coming years. The solar panels will form the major portion of E-silicon waste in the future. The efficiency of the panels can be increased and waste can be minimized by utilizing the materials such as nanowires, nanoparticles, nanotubes and other similar electrically and photonically active Nano template. PV manufacturing companies are researching on quantum based and Dye sensitized solar cells to replace silicon solar cells. The waste produced during manufacturing is less and can also be recovered after end of life of the cell. This process will not only help in reducing the installation, manufacturing costs but will also lead to E-silicon waste reduction. It will also reduce the expensive electronic and electric equipment’s used to produce the conventional silicon panels. If the nanosolar technology for PV panels is encouraged it will restrict the practice of exporting silicon waste to developing countries for landfill. The paper analyzes the amount of waste generated when nanotechnology is combined with solar panel technology.

Keywords

Silicon solar cells Nano-particles Dye sensitized solar cells Nanotechnology-waste Recycling 

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-63085-4_10

Effect of Heterogeneous Catalyst on Esterification of Pyrolysis Oil

Abstract
The bio-oil from fast pyrolysis of biomass cannot be used effectively as engine fuel because of its high corrosiveness and instability mainly due to substantial amounts of organic acids and reactive aldehydes. In this paper treatment of acids in the bio-oil was focused and esterification with different catalyst to convert the acids. Synergistic interactions among reactants and products were determined. Acid-catalyst removed water and drove the esterification reaction formation equilibria toward ester products. Effect of Amberlyst-15 on different acids present in the bio-oil was carried out and characteristics properties of bio-oil shown after treatment were improved. Catalyst characterization was carried and observed that carbon deposition on the surface of catalyst reduces the activity of the Amberlyst-15. The catalysts with high surface area, large pore size distribution, and strong acid sites may be beneficial for the esterification reaction.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-63085-4_30

Utilization of Waste Biomass into Useful Forms of Energy

Abstract

The rising cost of fossil fuel and environmental concern has motivated the scientific committee to research on alternative sustainable solution for energy and economic development. One of such sustainable energy resource is biomass, which is abundant, clean and carbon neutral. Agricultural residue which is abundant and causing problems of storage being wasted without using in any form energy source. The present study highlights utilization of residue biomass to useful form of energy using different thermochemical conversion technologies. This study is presented as a technical review cum analysis study which has been done on various common agricultural wastes for their Thermochemical conversion technologies which includes combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, torrefaction and liquefaction. The common agricultural wastes that are being taken for study are coconut shell, rice husk, corn cobs, cotton stalk, groundnut shell, cotton, sugarcane (bagasse). In Combustion process, the yield of gaseous product is around 50%, which can be utilized for combined heat and power production. In the combustion process, drawbacks are discussed and specified. It was observed that suitable combustor can be implemented for improving its oxidative characteristics so that the product gas yield can be increased for high quality steam production. In Gasification process, the biomass is partially oxidized to give a raw product gas or syngas which can be used in IC engines and for running gas turbines to produce electricity. It was observed that product gas or syngas obtained is around 85–90% pure compared to the gases obtained from coal gasification. Suggestions are made to improve the yield of syngas by suitable designs for specially downdraft gasifiers. Finally, Pyrolysis process of biomass is discussed, and focuses on improving the yield of liquid content by varying the operating conditions. Bio-oil production from pyrolysis can be varied from 65 to 75% by varying operating temperatures (500–650 °C) and heating rate. Finally, in this study we suggest the design of pyrolyser with different operating conditions for maximum yield of liquid, an attempt was made to increase the liquid product and reduce the char/gas content.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-47257-7_12

A comparative assessment of single cylinder diesel engine characteristics with plasto-oils derived from municipal mixed plastic waste

Abstract
Recycling of municipal mixed plastic waste (MPW) is an emerging technology for conversion of waste to wealth. In the current study, MPW was processed to produce plasto-oils (PO1 and PO2) by thermochemical depoly- merization in a batch production of 0.5 ton/batch. These oils were used in a 3.7kW rated power single cylinder direct injection compression ignition (CI) engine to assess performance, combustion and emission behavior of the engine. The experimental results with plasto-oils were compared with base diesel fuel operation at different brake mean effective pressures (BMEPs) of 1.8, 3.8, 5.8, 7.8 and 10.8 bar. It is explored that brake thermal efficiency of the test engine with plasto-oils was almost comparable with the diesel fuel at all engine loads. Carbon based emissions such as unburnt hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), and smoke emissions from the engine at 3.8–10.8 bar BMEPs were slightly higher with plasto-oils than diesel fuel. Nitrogen oxides emission decreased faintly with the use of plasto-oils at medium and high BMEPs (5.8–10.8 bar). However, at lower BMEPs (1.8–3.8 bar), emission behavior of the engine (HC, CO, smoke and NOx emissions) was same with all kinds of fuels (diesel, PO1 and PO2). Overall, it is ascertained from the study that the plasto-oils exhibited a comparable performance with the conventional diesel fuel, which further promises its viability to use as a fuel candidate for CI engines.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2018.04.068

Stabilization of Fast Pyrolysis Oil Derived from Wood through Esterification

Abstract:
In the present work, crude bio-oil obtained from vacuum pyrolysis of babul wood was stabilized by esterification with 1-butanol using the cation exchange resin, Amberlyst-15, as a solid acid catalyst.Ester formation reduces the pH, thereby increasing the shelf-life of the bio-oil. Since esterification is a reversible reaction, simultaneous separation of water during the course of the reaction helps to obtain high conversion. Azeotropic removal of water by reactive distillation was found to be effective in this work. Apart from reducing pH and improving shelf-life, this process also enabled water removal from crude bio-oil, and viscosity was reduced when the bio-oil was blended with alcohol. Amberlyst-15 was found to get deactivated after repeated use. Characterization of fresh and used catalyst by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area measurement and thermal analysis showed that the deposition of carbonaceous material on the catalyst is responsible for its deactivation. The condensation and oligomerization reactions of unstable compounds (e.g. furfural and its derivatives) are suspected to be the main reasons underlying catalyst deactivation.

https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ijcre.2015.13.issue-3/ijcre-2014-0102/ijcre-2014-0102.xml

10.1515/ijcre-2014-0102

Kinetic Modeling of Indian Rice Husk Pyrolysis

Abstract:
To efficiently utilize agricultural biomass waste, kinetic modeling of the pyrolysis of rice husk, including both physical (mainly heat transfer) and chemical (reactions) terms,was conducted at different heating rates from (10 to 20 Kmin−1) to develop a transport model. For chemical kinetics, the parameters were estimated using different kinetic models, namely the single- or parallel-reaction kinetic model with higher orders and the two-step consecutive reaction model. The two-step model could adequately explain the pyrolysis reaction of multiple reactions with different reaction orders i. e., first step is of the first order (m = 1) with respect to the mass of biomass, and the second step is of the second order (n = 2) with respect to the mass of the intermediate to char. The intrinsic kinetics at different heating rates in the absence of oxygen was derived through thermogravimetric analysis. The kinetics of the evolution of non-condensable gases was studied in a self-designed reactor, and an appropriate kinetic model of rice husk biomass pyrolysis that showed excellent agreement with experimental data was established.

10.1515/ijcre-2017-0048

http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ijcre.2018.16.issue-2/ijcre-2017-0048/ijcre-2017-0048.xml