TECHTOP – 2010
Prize Winners
First Prize - PRODUCTION OF NANO- CARBON SHEETS FROM THE EXHAUST PIPES IN INDUSTRIES
Production of Carbon nanotubes(CNTs) from the flue gases emitted by the industries is our main innovation. Normally, CNTs are produced in laboratories, by supplying high temperature(600 degrees), high pressure, Vacuum atmosphere and a continuous source of carbon dioxide, methane i.e. carbon source and hydrogen. All these requirements for the CNT production are available as a waste in the furnaces & exhaust pipes of various industries.
The Problem Definition: The flue gas released by the industry has carbon-dioxide, methane, nitrogen, hydrogen and some particulate matter. The content varies on the type of fuel, but the above mentioned constituents will be mostly present. The furnace operates at very high temperature, pressure and has a naturally generated vacuum atmosphere inside it. The burning of the fuel ensures continuous supply of flue gases. All these conditions present in the industrial furnaces, boilers and exhaust pipes are wasted in the form of energy and matter. Tapping this resource and by modifying the CVD (Combustion Vapour Deposition) method by adequately modifying the substrates, we were able to cultivate Carbon Nanotubes ,an extremely useful commodity with a wide range of applications,successfully.
The Problem Definition: The flue gas released by the industry has carbon-dioxide, methane, nitrogen, hydrogen and some particulate matter. The content varies on the type of fuel, but the above mentioned constituents will be mostly present. The furnace operates at very high temperature, pressure and has a naturally generated vacuum atmosphere inside it. The burning of the fuel ensures continuous supply of flue gases. All these conditions present in the industrial furnaces, boilers and exhaust pipes are wasted in the form of energy and matter. Tapping this resource and by modifying the CVD (Combustion Vapour Deposition) method by adequately modifying the substrates, we were able to cultivate Carbon Nanotubes ,an extremely useful commodity with a wide range of applications,successfully. Description of the Solution: We have prepared various substrates during our experiment .They are : 1) Sand covered cement substrate coated with various nano-sized metal oxides. a) Inert substrate: It is cement substrate coated with a layer of SiO2. b) Catalyst: Fe2O3,Fe3O4( Ferrous Oxide nano-particles),CuO(Copper oxide nano particles ),SnO(Tin oxide nano particles),ZnO(Zinc Oxide nano particles),PbO2(Lead Oxide nano particles) and Nickel oxide nano particles were coated over the inert substrate. c) Solution form of the catalysts were coated over the substrates and kept in muffle furnace at 5000C till the catalyst impregnates in the SiO2 pockets. d) Glass substrates were coated with metal oxides by spray pyrolysis .Acetate form of metals acting as a suitable catalysts were taken and coated over the glass substrates which can withstand high temperature(borosilicates). These substrates were introduced into the flow of flue gas in the exhaust pipes which is at high temperature and pressure. By pyrolytic cracking of the flue gas over the catalytic substrate i.e CVD process , we were able to obtain Carbon Nanotubes, with a minimum size of 27nano-metres and average range of 40 to 50nano-metres.
Second Prize - UNIVERSAL MOBILE AUTOMATION SYSTEM.
spectrum for usage and it can fulfill a multirole tasking objective. This system involves two mobile phones one of which is the user phone through which the user can perform the desired operation and another phone is attached to the system to receive the call. When the user calls on to the mobile phone , the call is received automatically, the user is now connected to the system, he can now operate all the devices connected to the system. This project involves microcontroller coding, any number of devices can be operated through this system and user can operate all the devices connected to our system through his mobile phone or laptop/computer system with the help of an FM transmitter
The Problem Definition: Cheap automation has always been the need of the hour to improve work efficiency and to save priceless resources like electricity, power, water etc. At present, cheap automation systems for social welfare like serial automation of street lights, control of power wastage in a building through automated controls, control of water wastage etc. are alien concepts for a common man. Our project solves this enigma of automation at a very low cost to make it affordable for even a common man.
Description of the Solution: Our solution to the above problem of cheap and efficient automation for homes, industries, offices and social welfare purposes is through a prototype called Universal Mobile Automation System (UMAS). A brief description is given as follows-:
Main Circuit This project is based on the principle of DTMF detector and microcontroller interfacing. When the user presses a key on the mobile phone keypad, two signals are generated. One of which goes to the DTMF signal detector and the second signal goes to the ring detector, which is basically an MCT2E optocoupler. Now the microcontroller generates a pulsed signal which shorts the call pick-up key, now a greeting message will be generated by a solid-state voice synthesizer. There are eight Darlington pair amplifiers which then operate the 8 relays connected to the circuit. An FM receiver is also connected through the DTMF decoder IC CM8870. Output of the microcontroller is sent through the HT12E encoder IC which generates the 4-bit output for operating the movement of wireless robot.
Third Prize & Consolation Prize (Women in Technology) By Terumopenpol- THE DARK NET
Nowadays, it is an increasingly known fact that Internet is the backbone for everything. However at the same time, we know that India (developing countries in general) continues to face the challenge of how to increase internet access to rural and remote areas. Furnishing Remote areas with internet facility is the background of our project
Communication companies are highly hesitant to provide internet to these areas due to high infra-structure costs, less population density and ability of people residing in these areas to pay for internet. ‘The Dark Net’ is an innovative product idea that we have come up with to solve this problem
We attach Wi-Fi devices to public buses, trucks etc. They act as movable carriers of internet between rural villages and internet hubs as these buses, trucks travel through rural and remote areas. We have written our own software which provides access to e-mails, news, rss feeds, and internet browsing etc by talking to these Wi-Fi devices. The specialty of our custom software is that, it can store the mails, news etc offline for people to use later/offline. So, when these Wi-Fi buses, trucks etc cross these villages, our software will download the daily news, mails etc to the user which he/she can read later. Also, any e-mail etc that he/she wants to send through Internet also will happen when these Wi-Fi buses, trucks crosses his/her village. In addition, our software stores the media in a highly compressed format which takes very little space as compared to the original sizes. Our product uses a new hybrid technology where we combine traditional communication and physical transportation infrastructures for the first time
Consolation PrizeSponsored by TCS – AUTOMATED SMART SOWING MACHINE FOR PORT TRAYS (AGRI ROBOT)
India is the 2nd largest producer of vegetable crops in the world. In conventional agricultural practices, cultivation of vegetables is done by sowing seeds in the open field which has the major disadvantages ; o Low germination percentage leads to wastage of precious seeds as they are costly, say Rs.10, 000 for hybrid seeds. o Low germination percentage creates gap in the field which declines the total yield. o Even if gaps are filled, there will be no uniformity of crops, making harvesting a difficult process. The researchers in the agricultural field have found poly house farming as an alternative to overcome the above disadvantages. Poly houses are framed structures covered with transparent or a translucent material, as shown in Fig.1 and Fig.2 It is large enough to grow crops under partial or fully controlled environmental conditions to get maximum productivity and quality produce. Polyethylene/ plastic film covered greenhouses are widely used.
Poly house cultivation ensures high productivity per unit area with the genetic potentiality of the crop being fully exploited. Off season vegetables can be grown which fetch high prices in the market. It is easy to protect the crops against pests, diseases and extreme climatic conditions. Productivity is manifold in greenhouses in comparison to growing the vegetables in open field. The table shows the performance of tomato varieties under poly house and open field conditions in NEH region (Barapani).
Advantages of containers (Port tray) in greenhouse/ polyhouse production o Increase in production capacity by reducing crop time. o High quality of the greenhouse product o Uniformity in plant growth with good vigor. o Provide quick take off with little or no transplanting shock. o Easy maintenance of sanitation in greenhouse. o Easy to handle, grade and shift or for transportation. o Better water drainage and aeration in pot media. o Easy to monitor chemical characteristics and plant nutrition with advanced irrigation systems like drips. In poly house farming, port trays are used as containers in which seeds are sown. Port trays are available in different sizes with varying number of cups. The punching of soil filled cups of port tray and placing single seed in it, is still being done manually!!??….
The Problem Definition: In the present scenario, the process of farming in poly houses is a tedious task as the punching and sowing of seeds is being carried out manually. The constraints associated with this process are, o Manual seeding requires the laborers and there is a scarcity of laborers nowadays. o Most of the laborers demand high wages. o Since hired laborers work irresponsibly, there is a tendency of the laborer to sow more than one seed in a cup, which leads to wastage of seeds. o Even trained laborers consume more time to sow a single seed in each cup, thereby making the process too slow. The only solution to overcome these drawbacks is to automate the process of sowing single seed in a cup in order to avoid the wastage of seeds and hence reduce the process time. In automating this process, instrumentation and control plays a vital role which is the inspiration to take up this project work. The intention of this project work is to implement the innovative idea to help the agriculturists to reduce both the cost as well as the process time by automating the entire process. Robot is an integral part of this intended automated system as they are programmable and consequently capable of performing a wide variety of tasks in precise manner.
Consolation Prize Sponsored by Intel – DEFLUORIDATION OF DRINKING WATER USING INEXPENSIVE ACTIVATED CARBONS AS ADSORBENTS
Water is a chemical compound which is extremely useful to man, providing him the luxuries and comforts, in addition to fulfilling his basic necessities of life. It is necessary that the water required must be good, pure and it should not contain unwanted impurities, contaminants and chemical compounds. Fluoride is one such contaminant. Fluoride is a salt of the element fluorine, the most highly reactive element of halogen family. High concentration of fluorides which cause mottling of teeth initially and dental fluorosis diseases to crippling skeletal fluorosis with continued use of fluoride rich waters. Defluoridation is the only practicable option to overcome the problem of excessive fluoride in drinking water, where alternative source is not available. During the years following the discovery of fluoride as the cause of fluorosis, extensive research has been done on various methods for removal of fluoride from water. These methods are based on the Principle of Adsorption, Ion Exchange, Precipitation , Coagulation, Membrane Separation Process, Electrolytic Defluoridation, Electro dialysis, etc. However due to high cost and lower efficiency or non-applicability on mass scale these techniques is not much in use. Hence in this present work, an attempt is made to remove the fluoride in drinking water using activated carbon prepared from inexpensive agro byproducts as adsorbents. Keywords: Fluoride, Activated carbon, Corn-cob, Activation, Defluoridation.
The Problem Definition: Defluoridation Of Drinking Water Using Inexpensive Activated Carbons As Adsorbents. In the present work an attempt is made to remove fluoride in drinking water in a column study using activated carbon prepared from an agro-based byproduct i.e. corn-cob with the following objectives, a) To prepare granular activated carbon from corn-cob.b) Optimization of operating condition for an effective treatment. c) To compare the effectiveness prepared low cost activated carbon and commercial activated carbon under identical experimental condition
Special Jury Prize – By Intel -IDENTIFICATION OF CARDIAC ARRHYTHMIA USING ARTIFICAL NEURAL NETWORKS
This project is a live one as it has ability to identify the class of cardiac signal and thus solves the problem of misinterpretation of the ECG signals. According to a report when the same ECG signal was introduced to different doctors as well as to the same doctor repeated number of times, the prediction was different every time. Such wrong interpretation may be life threatening and makes it difficult to predict a future strokes. The hardware is an initiative towards solving this problem as well as complete automisation of biomedical devices.
We take the concept of neural network that learns these patterns of cardiac problems and identifies whenever a new pattern comes. This also adds one more advantage of predicting a signal which is not the trained database. Thus even if a peculiar signal comes the hardware can direct the doctor in a particular way where he must focus his interpretation. The main and most significant feature of this system is scalability i.e. more than one solar panel`s can be guided with this system.
More over one can include much advancement such as the hardware after detecting can also suggest initial steps and cautions for treatment as well as suggestions for medications. Telemetry, portable system and varied analysis ability are some other features that can be included in this project with further research work.
For industry: Industries have good prospects of business as it provides a new range of ECG machines which itself is a doctor of hearts. Also they can fund for further research work so that a new range of products could be launched in the market which have the concept of automisation, a revolution in biomedical analysis.
For society: Moreover more than 30 million ECGs are taken each year worldwide most of which interpreted just on experience. Estimate the chances of misinterpretation? A devices fully automised and meeting the requirements of international standards of biomedical equipments can save millions of lives. This project is not just a paper work it’s a solution to the problem.