renewable energy – The KGP Chronicle

IIT Kharagpur Develops Solar-powered Pest Control System for Smaller Farm Fields

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed energy-efficient pest controlling device for smaller agricultural tracts owned by marginal farmers. The research team has developed a self-propelled boom-type sprayer that can be operated using solar energy while safely guided through the crops in smaller tracts of land. The device is aimed to increase field capacity and uniformity in liquid spraying and also to reduce drudgery to the operator and dependency on fossil fuel for carrying out spraying in cropped areas.

Prevention of pests and diseases during different growth stages of crops is an important process to increase its yield. For larger tracts of farmlands, tractor mounted sprayers are used, while manually operated knapsack sprayer is used for smaller tracts. This impacts the efficiency of spraying as it depends on the skill of the operator leading to non-uniformity in spraying. Further, it requires intensive labour capacity and operation time. Using tractor-mounted sprayers in smaller tracts on the other hand would make the crops prone to damages due to their higher turning radius. Also, it leads to the wastage of chemicals due to lower control on automated spraying. Not to mention the environmental pollution due to the fuel emissions from the tractor.

It is important to note, about 82% of the farming community are categorized as small or marginal as per FAO with landholding less than 2 hectares [Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India, 2019]. With a view to improve the condition of small and marginal farmers and to double the income of farmers by 2022, Government is realigning its interventions from a production-centric approach to farmers’ income-centric initiatives, with a focus on better and new technological solutions.

“This is an open call to the technical institutions in India to deliver in the field of precision agricultural technologies. In the IIT system, IIT Kharagpur has the sole distinction of having an Agricultural & Food Engineering department. Hence it is our foremost responsibility to answer this call,” opined Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

The semi-automated device developed by Prof. Hifjur Raheman, Anup Behera Rahul K and Prof. P.B.S. Bhadoria from the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering at IIT Kharagpur will address several challenges of the mechanized pest control systems in the small farm sector.

The system comprises a propelling unit fitted with a liquid storage tank, a DC motor operated pump to pressurize the liquid to be sprayed. Multiple numbers of spray nozzles are mounted on a boom fitted to the front of the machine to cover wider width at a time. A set of solar-powered battery act as the power source of the DC motor to propel the spraying unit as well as for running the pump. Unlike a knapsack sprayer, the liquid storage tank is of bigger capacity and it is carried on a solar-powered three-wheeler trolley. An operator is required to control the movement of the spraying unit. A simple arrangement has been provided to vary the height of spraying (i.e., nozzle height from the ground) to carryout spraying for different heights of crops. Solar panels are mounted on top of the machine to provide continuous power supply during operation through the Maximum Power Point Tracker controller and it also provides shade to the operator during spraying in the field.

“As compared to conventional knapsack sprayers, the developed sprayer has a higher field capacity and more uniformity of spraying with less drudgery to the operator. It can be easily operated in the field using solar energy with a maximum speed of 2 km/h and can cover a width of 1.5 metre at a time with a field efficiency of 81% thus saving time, human involvement and chemicals,” remarked Prof. Raheman.

The researchers have filed a patent for the product and it is ready for commercialization.

Director Tewari who is also a leading expert in the field of farm machinery and power engineering said, “We have developed several such technologies covering micro-irrigation, shed net cultivation and food processing at the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering which are in use in various villages across the 23 districts of West Bengal and other states in Eastern India, covering almost 20000 farmers. Such innovations empower each member of the farming community following the pathway towards Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

Contact:

Dr. H. Raheman, Professor, Department of Agricultural & Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur; Tel: 03222-283160 (O); E: hifjur@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in

Connect with us on social media: Facebook: @IITKgp Twitter: @IITKgp Instagram: @iit.kgp; Or write to us at media@iitkgp.ac.in

More information:

Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering: http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/AG

Center for Rural Development and Innovative Sustainable Technology: http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/RD

Media Coverage:

India Today	Business Standard	Economic Times	Hindustan Times
Yahoo Style	Yahoo News	Yahoo Finance	India Blooms
ABP Education	DataQuest	Careers 360	DownToEarth
Science Reporter	Krishi Jagran	Vigyan Prasar	In Shorts
Republic World	Outlook	Anandabazar Patrika	Dainik Jagran
NDTV	Mid Day	The Tribune

IIT KGP’s Clean Energy Dialogue

Business Standard Devdiscourse UNIIndia

PK Sinha Center for Bioenergy and Renewables at IIT Kharagpur has organized the DBT National Workshop on Bioenergy (DNWB 2019) in Kolkata on October 17-18, 2019. Funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, this workshop aims to bring together bioenergy scientists from around the country to promote a national conversation on and solve technological challenges towards achieving the national mission of deploying clean energy to fight climate change.

The workshop provides a rare opportunity to DBT’s five Bioenergy Centers, namely, the DBT-Pan IIT Center for Bioenergy, the DBT-ICGEB Center for Bioenergy, the DBT-IOCL Center, the DBT-TERI Center for Bioenergy, and the DBT-ICT Center for Energy Biosciences, to come together and discuss their bioenergy research, exchange new ideas, and collaborate towards building a renewable energy future for India.

“Climate change is the biggest threat to our species and our planet today. The reasons for climate change in the post-industrialization period are clearly anthropogenic, i.e., caused by human activity. In the last 168 years, the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased by 45%, from 285 ppm in 1850 to 415 ppm in 2018,” said Prof. Saikat Chakraborty, Convenor of the workshop.

This sudden increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration in the post-industrialization period has drastically enhanced the Greenhouse Effect, leading to global warming. The year 2017 was the hottest on record (followed by 2018) without an El Nino boost, with an average global temperature rise of 1°C higher since the pre-industrial level in 1850.

“As we are fast approaching the warning limit of 1.5°C of global warming, set by the Paris International Climate Agreement signed by 175 countries, the changes in global climate will be sweeping and devastating. Many small islands will be wiped out, deltas and coastal cities will be submerged,” remarked Prof. Chakraborty.

The glaciers in the Arctic, the Antarctic and the Himalayas are already melting at alarming rates, leading to a whirlwind of severe weather events: floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, severe snowstorms, scorching heatwaves, droughts and wildfires.

“Two hundred living species of plants and animals are going extinct from our planet every single day. In short, life on earth is in peril in a way it’s never been before,” he added.

Coordinated by Prof. Saikat Chakraborty and Prof. Mrinal K. Maiti of IIT Kharagpur, DNWB-2019 aims to bridge the gap between researchers from academia and industries with other professionals within India through various keynote addresses, scientific and technical lectures and poster presentations encompassing the current situation and future trends on various aspects of bioenergy, including combating climate change through biofuels, algal biofuels, lignocellulosic biofuels, and cyanobacterial biofuels. Professor M.S. Ananth, two-time Former Director of IIT Madras, will be the Chief Guest at the workshop’s inauguration program, and Dr. Anjan Ray, Director, Indian Institute of Petroleum Dehradun, will be the Guest of Honour, while Dr. Sangita M. Kasture, Joint Director, DBT, will be representing the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. The keynote addresses will be delivered by Dr. Anjan Ray, Director of IIP-Dehradun, Prof. Debabrata Das, Former MNRE Chair Professor at IIT Kharagpur, and Dr. Santanu Dasgupta, Senior Vice President at Reliance Industries Limited.

Currently headed by Prof. Makarand M. Ghangrekar, the PK Sinha Centre for Bioenergy and Renewables at IIT Kharagpur was incepted on August 31, 2009, by the hands of its founder and patron Dr. Prabhakant Sinha, an illustrious IIT Kharagpur alumnus. This Centre is India’s first Integrated Bioenergy Centre, which is involved in activities such as knowledge in action by partnering with the government, commercial organizations, knowledge dissemination through academia, industry and policymakers. Experts at the Centre are currently working in the areas of Bioethanol, Biodiesel, Biohydrogen, Biomethane, Algal biorefinery, Microbial fuel cells, Genetic engineering of energy crops, etc.

“We are also exploring various biological processes to innovate efficient, economically viable processes for the treatment of waste. Attempts have also been made to overcome the scale-up challenges of microbial fuel cells for the bioremediation of wastewater and electricity generation,” said the Centre’s Head, Prof. Ghangrekar.

Harvesting the Oceans

Business Standard The Week NDTV Jagran Josh Indian Express

IIT Kharagpur and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have signed an MoU on October 11, 2018 at New Delhi to facilitate cooperation in research and education between the two institutions. NTNU is an expert in Hydro Power, Ocean Modelling, Deep Sea Resources and Marine Technology which will be key areas of focus under this MoU.

The two institutions shall seek to promote mobility of graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, joint research activities and publications, cross-participation in seminars and academic meetings and exchange of academic materials and academic publications. Further, the two institutions will also explore opportunities for special short-term academic programs. The MoU was signed by Prof. Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, Deputy Director of IIT KGP and Dr. Gunnar Bovim, Rector, NTNU. Nils Ragnar Kamsvåg, Ambassador of Norway to India was also present on this occasion.

“IIT KGP has three departments and centers working in these areas including Dept. of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, Center for Oceans, Rivers, Atmosphere and Land Science and the Dept. of Civil Engineering with its core areas in Hydrodynamics, Coastal, Marine and Hydraulic Engineering and Wave Modelling. Other areas would include Structural and Petroleum Engineering, Reliability of Infrastructure Systems, Geology and Geophysics,” said the Deputy Director Prof. Bhattacharyya, who is also a domain expert.

Norway is striding towards expanding collaboration between India and Norway in marine and maritime research and education. Following the meeting of the prime ministers of India and Norway in April this year, the Norwegian Embassy has been wanting to engage with top educational institutions in India.

“Countries known for their clean energy initiatives have made significant advancements in marine technologies and harvesting the ocean for various forms of energy including renewable energy. In India we are generating about 15% of our electricity from hydroelectric power, however, the share of this clean and renewable source of energy needs to be increased substantially. Considering the shifting Himalayan terrain, we have to look for alternate resources and innovations in generating hydroelectric power” opined Prof. Baidurya Bhattacharya, Dean, International Relations and faculty at the Dept. of Civil Engineering.

Both IIT KGP and NTNU have transdisciplinary academic and research programs encompassing science and technology, medicine, social sciences to arts and fine arts and more areas of common interest will be explored in future.

“Further to this, we have also initiated discussions on reciprocal student exchange and internships. Graduate students from NTNU will visit IIT KGP in 2019 as part of the Indo-Norwegian project to carry out a part of their master’s thesis work,” confirmed Prof. Mohammad Saud Afzal, faculty at IITKGP and alumnus of NTNU.

Microwave for Clean Fuel

Times of India Economic Times Financial Express Business Standard India Today

Watch Video

Kitchen to Cosmos Microwaves these days ring ‘n’ number of bells. IITKGP Researchers have tapped this microwave radiation to create Clean Energy from the nitrogen-rich non-food Sunn Hemp plants.

In the wake of the ongoing initiatives to control pollution, we are often made to think of the proverb ‘prevention is better than cure’. There is an urgency to replace the use of fossil fuels like petrol and diesel which are direct causes of pollution, global warming and climate change. Various clean energy technologies have been developed. Acres of land in the country have been allocated for solar and wind energy, hydel power and geothermal projects have been deployed and expanded over the decades. But India’s fossil fuel import bill still runs high due to non-availability of renewable energy sources at mass scale. Biofuels derived from high-energy non-edible plant sources such as Sunn Hemp on the other hand have the potential of making it available in large scale for replacement of fossil fuel which can find significant use in transportation sector. The main obstacle to its large scale deployment as a future fuel is its highly crystalline structure and long polymer chains, which make the fibres inaccessible to enzymatic and chemical treatments.

Researchers from IIT Kharagpur’s P K Sinha Center for Bioenergy have exacted the issue through the use of microwave radiation. The team from the Bioenergy Lab at the Dept. of Chemical Engineering has successfully converted non-edible lignocellulosic fibres of Sunn Hemp to biofuel precursors, and that too completing the entire conversion – which otherwise takes about 8-10 hours – in only 46 minutes using the microwave reactors in the lab.

“1 kilogram of Sunn hemp fibres containing 756 gram of cellulose produces 595 gram of glucose at 160°C, and 203 gram of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) at 180°C, in 46 minutes. The glucose is separated and fermented using yeasts to produce 230 g of ethanol-based biofuel which is often used in automobiles as a biofuel additive for gasoline. The platform chemical HMF can also be hydrogenated to furanic biofuels such as dimethylfuran which can be used as a replacement for diesel” explained researcher Souvik Kumar Paul.

Sunn hemp is widely grown in the subtropics of Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka, USA, Uganda. It is grown in almost all states of India, especially Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

The large scale availability of Sunn Hemp in India along with its fast rate of growth and high cellulose (75.6%) and high energy contents (2.5×109 MJ/year) are the key elements of listing it as a top choice for the biofuel industry. Sunn hemp fibres produce 2268 kg dry biomass/acre in only 9–12 weeks, with 19 megajoule of energy/kg dry biomass at a global production of 130,000 MT/year.

“Sunn hemp fibre has the unique potential of being converted to transportation biofuels rather than being merely used as bast fibre for weaving mats, etc. Our research will give its chemical composition the necessary stability for conversion and deployment as liquid biofuels, which can be used by the transportation industry in a large scale,” said Prof. Saikat Chakraborty, lead researcher and faculty at the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and P K Sinha Center for Bioenergy.

These chemical reactions are performed by the scientists at IIT Kharagpur in a large microwave digestion system that houses 16 high pressure reactors. By combining the dried Sunn hemp fibres with chemicals such as ionic liquid and metal catalysts, and water at high temperatures, they form large molecular structures in these microwave reactors. This supramolecular complex being polar in nature rotates under the microwave’s alternating polarity and rapidly dissipates the electromagnetic energy through molecular collisions across the reactors. These dipole rotations and intermolecular collisions help rapidly break the polymeric bonds in the Sunn hemp fibres and convert them to biofuel precursors in only 46 minutes.

“Biofuel production costs are minimized by recovering and recycling the ionic liquid,” added Chakraborty. “This conversion process, which can be used for a large spectrum of non-food lignocelluloses apart from Sunn hemp, is particularly suitable for commercialization because it results in a 10-fold decrease in the reaction time. A mixture of biomass can also be processed in these reactors rather than a single biomass without any further increase in the reaction time, which should make this process an attractive option for the biofuel industry.”

While the significant industry potential of this invention has led the scientists to file for a patent, their findings have also appeared in the globally renowned journal Bioresource Technology published by Elsevier.