Journal Articles

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    Optimizing the position of insulating materials in flat roofs exposed to sunshine to gain minimum heat into buildings under periodic heat transfer conditions
    (Springer Verlag service@springer.de, 2016) Saboor, S.; Ashok Babu, A.B.P.S.
    Building roofs are responsible for the huge heat gain in buildings. In the present work, an analysis of the influence of insulation location inside a flat roof exposed directly to the sun’s radiation was performed to reduce heat gain in buildings. The unsteady thermal response parameters of the building roof such as admittance, transmittance, decrement factor, and time lags have been investigated by solving a one-dimensional diffusion equation under convective periodic boundary conditions. Theoretical results of four types of walls were compared with the experimental results available in literature. The results reveal that the roof with insulation placed at the outer side and at the center plane of the roof is the most energy efficient from the lower decrement factor point of view and the roof with insulation placed at the center plane and the inner side of the roof is the best from the highest time lag point of view among the seven studied configurations. The composite roof with expanded polystyrene insulation located at the outer side and at the center plane of the roof is found to be the best roof from the lowest decrement factor (0.130) point of view, and the composite roof with resin-bonded mineral wool insulation located at the center plane and at the inner side of the roof is found to be energy efficient from the highest time lag point (9.33 h) of view among the seven configurations with five different insulation materials studied. The optimum fabric energy storage thicknesses of reinforced cement concrete, expanded polystyrene, foam glass, rock wool, rice husk, resin-bonded mineral wool, and cement plaster were computed. From the results, it is concluded that rock wool has the least optimum fabric energy storage thickness (0.114 m) among the seven studied building roof materials. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
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    Output power enhancement of solar PV panel using solar tracking system
    (Bentham Science Publishers B.V. P.O. Box 294 Bussum 1400 AG, 2019) Tripathi, A.K.; Mangalpady, M.; Murthy, C.S.N.
    Solar Photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion has gained much attention nowadays. The output power of PV panel depends on the condition under which the panel is working, such as solar radiation, ambient temperature, dust, wind speed and humidity. The amount of falling sunlight on the panel surface (i.e., solar radiation) directly affects its output power. In order to maximize the amount of falling sunlight on the panel surface, a solar tracking PV panel system is introduced. This paper describes the design, development and fabrication of the solar PV panel tracking system. The designed solar tracking system is able to track the position of the sun throughout the day, which allows more sunlight falling on the panel surface. The experimental results show that there was an enhancement of up to a 64.72% in the output power of the PV panel with reference to the fixed orientation PV panel. Further, this study also demonstrates that the full load torque of the tracking system would be much higher than the obtained torque, which is required to track the position of the sun. This propounds, that the proposed tracking system can also be used for a higher capacity PV power generation system. © 2019 Bentham Science Publishers.
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    Solar assisted photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants in the presence of biogenic fluorescent ZnS nanocolloids
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2019) Uddandarao, P.; Hingnekar, T.A.; Mohan Balakrishnan, R.M.; Rene, E.R.
    The main aim of this study was to ascertain the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants present in aqueous phase using fluorescent biogenic ZnS nanocolloids produced from an endophytic fungus Aspergillus flavus. The degradation studies were carried out using different organic pollutants such as methyl violet (MV), 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and paracetamol (PARA) for 120 min, 270 min and 240 min, respectively, at pH varying from 3.0 to 11.0. The results from this study indicate that the degradation efficiency of ZnS nanocolloids for MV, 2,4-D and PARA were 87%, 33% and 51%, respectively, at the optimum concentration of 100 mg/L of the tested organic pollutants. At different time intervals, the samples were analyzed for their chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC) contents. The reduction of COD and TOC were 78% and 74% for MV at 120 min; 55.5% and 57.2% for 2,4-D at 270 min and 47.6% and 44.5% for PARA at 240 min, respectively. The degradation pathway was determined based on the mass spectrum and the intermediates formed; in addition, the interaction between organic pollutants and nanocolloids was also elucidated based on atomic force microscopy (AFM) and fluorescence spectrum. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd
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    Photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin & norfloxacin and disinfection studies under solar light using boron & cerium doped TiO2 catalysts synthesized by green EDTA-citrate method
    (Elsevier B.V., 2021) Manjunatha, M.; Chandewar, P.R.; Mahalingam, H.
    The presence of antibiotic residues in water bodies is an emerging global concern due to its potential development of antimicrobial resistance. Hence, it is essential to develop photocatalysts that not only degrade the antibiotics but can also simultaneously disinfect. Four different boron and cerium doped TiO2 photocatalysts, synthesized by the EDTA-citrate method, are studied for the degradation of two common fluoroquinolone-based antibiotics: ciprofloxacin (CIP) and norfloxacin (NOR) under sunlight. The catalysts are characterized by SEM, TEM, Raman spectroscopy, XPS, DRS, BET surface area and particle size analyzer. At optimized conditions, the synthesized catalysts showed 90–93% degradation for both CIP and NOR. The effects of catalyst loading and initial concentration are studied, and the reaction is found to be pseudo-first-order. The degradation is analyzed by COD reduction and LC–MS, and the by-products of degradation determined. The recycle studies showed that the catalysts are stable up to three consecutive runs. The scavenging experiments indicated e? and OH? as the dominant species responsible for the photocatalytic activity. The disinfection studies using these catalysts under solar light gave 95–99.99% efficiency for E.coli confirming that they are very efficient and can be further exploited for large scale treatment. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.
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    Design, fabrication and performance assessment of a solar cooker with optimum composition of heat storage materials
    (Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2021) Anilkumar, B.C.; Maniyeri, R.; Anish, S.
    Solar energy as an inexhaustible source of energy has been the primary interest of many researchers for the last four to five decades due to its wide applications such as domestic cooking systems. The current work aims to determine the optimum cooker surface area with the aid of analytical heat loss and design equations. The top, bottom and side heat loss coefficients are calculated by an iterative procedure solved using MATLAB. Also, it seeks to obtain the performance parameters of a solar cooker having sensible heat storage materials. For an anticipated average solar irradiation of 800 W/m2 and for boiling 1.5 kg mass of water, the cooker surface area is found to be 0.36 m2 and fabricated accordingly. Also, in this study, iron grits, sand, brick powder and charcoal powder are taken in the optimum ratio (mass) of 1:2:2:3 respectively as heat storage material. The performance indicators namely first and second figures of merit (F1 and F2), thermal and exergy efficiency are found to be 0.085, 0.319, 16.1% and 0.61% respectively. It is found that water temperature in the developed thermal energy storage incorporated solar cooker is maintained above 70 °C until 6 PM in a day. © 2020, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
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    Highly efficient solar light-driven BiOX (X=Br/Cl/I) and BiOY heterojunction (Y=Br/Cl) nano photocatalysts in suspended and immobilised forms for malachite green dye wastewater treatment
    (Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2023) Mishra, S.; Manjunatha, M.; Mahalingam, H.
    A novel BiOY (Y = Br/Cl) heterojunction nanocatalyst was synthesised chemically and compared with three different BiOX (X = Br/Cl/I) nanocatalysts as well as a physical admixture of BiOBr/BiOCl catalysts in the photocatalytic degradation of malachite green dye wastewater under solar irradiation in both suspended and immobilised forms using polysulfone as the substrate. Catalyst characterisation was done by a particle size analyser, SEM/EDX, XRD, FTIR, and DRS. In the suspended form, BiOBr showed 100% degradation within 70 min, BiOCl showed 99.3%, and BiOI showed 11.2% degradation within 120 min, and it is found to follow pseudo-first-order kinetics. In the immobilised form, BiOBr showed 89.1%, and BiOCl showed 83.4% degradation within 180 min under sunlight. The degradation measured by TOC reduction for these catalysts in suspended form was 67.4%, 57%, and 40%, affirming BiOBr as the best among these catalysts. The performance of the immobilised chemically synthesised BiOY and physical admixture catalysts were 88% and 14%, respectively. The enhanced activity in the chemically synthesised immobilised BiOBr/Cl catalyst can be attributed to the effective charge separation at the heterojunction interface. These photocatalysts are very active under solar light and hence suitable for the efficient degradation of other recalcitrant organic contaminants. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
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    Upcycling of waste EPS beads to immobilized codoped TiO2 photocatalysts for ciprofloxacin degradation and E. coli disinfection under sunlight
    (Nature Research, 2023) Manjunatha, M.; Mahalingam, H.
    The emerging global problem of antimicrobial resistance needs immediate attention. In this regard, this work demonstrates the use of expanded polystyrene waste in the synthesis of immobilized photocatalytic films for the treatment of antibiotics as well as for bacterial disinfection. A boron–cerium codoped TiO2 catalyst (of specific composition: B0.8Ce0.2TiO2) was immobilized in an expanded polystyrene (EPS) film prepared from waste EPS beads. These films were studied for the degradation of ciprofloxacin (CIP) and disinfection of E. coli under sunlight. The film with a catalyst loading of 20 wt% showed a maximum degradation of 89% in 240 min with a corresponding TOC reduction of 84%. A 7.4 and 6.3 log reduction from the bacterial inactivation studies in the presence and absence of antibiotics, respectively, was obtained. The EPS film was stable after five times of reuse, and no significant chemical changes in the used film were observed from FTIR analysis. The average thickness of the prepared film was found from FESEM analysis to be 1.09 mm. These EPS films were also tested for degradation of other antibiotics, such as norfloxacin, levofloxacin and moxifloxacin. The EPS films were tested in two different reactor volumes at optimum conditions. Also, the effectiveness of B0.8Ce0.2TiO2/EPS film in real water samples indicates its potential in large-scale and real-world applications. Thus, these B0.8Ce0.2TiO2/EPS films can be effectively employed for both degradation of ciprofloxacin and the disinfection of E. coli under solar light to solve the increasing problem of antimicrobial resistance. © 2023, Springer Nature Limited.