News on Science, Technology and Research in India
The team has used DST FIST-supported High-temperature X-ray diffraction (HTXRD) facility Rigaku SmartLab, particularly useful for the thermal stability assessment of novel solid electrolytes. The XRD patterns were obtained in situ up to 500 oC. Now, the batteries and supercapacitors to operate at high temperatures are being developed.
Defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on Thursday said that the heaviest semi-cryogenic propellant tank (SC120- LOX) it has ever fabricated has been delivered to Indian Space Research Organization (Isro).
The chickpea varieties, IPC L4-14, BGM 4005 and IPCMB 19-3, have been developed in collaborations with ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR), Kanpur, and ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi.
A team of Indian scientists have developed an environmentally friendly, non-toxic, biodegradable polymer using guar gum and chitosan, both of which are polysaccharides extracted from guar beans and shells of crab and shrimps. The fabricated guar gum-chitosan film having high water stability, high mechanical strength, and excellent resistance to harsh environmental conditions can potentially be used in packaging applications.
Indian researchers have developed a method that can help large scale synthesis of a special class of semiconductor nanocrystals. These nanocrystals called two-dimensional layered perovskite and perovskite nanocrystals, which have bright emission colours and are not affected by or corroded by the environment, are useful for both high colour purity and low-cost solution processability.
While two of them — EOS-4 (Risat-1A) and EOS-6 (Oceansat-3) — will be launched using Isro’s workhorse PSLV, the third one, EOS-2 (Microsat), will be launched in the first developmental flight of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), marking the beginning of a new class of launch vehicles in India.
Indian Scientists have developed a novel high-performance bioreactor system integrated with sustainable pre-treatment process for enabling anaerobic digestion of complex fat-rich sludge from dairy industry. It has been further integrated with membrane bioreactor based-wastewater treatment to enable zero liquid discharge in the dairy industry.
ISRO’s first mission dedicated for astronomy, AstroSat, launched on 28 September 2015 with its design life of five years, on Tuesday completed six years of its operation. “It (AstroSat) is expected to last some more years”, A S Kiran Kumar who as the then Chairman of ISRO led the mission team, and is presently serving as the chair of the apex science committee at the space agency, told PTI. “We can expect some more results to come which will be path-breaking”, he said.
Wearable motion sensors are made of materials that convert the mechanical strain that arises from human movement into electrical signals. The material must be flexible, robust, and highly sensitive to both large and subtle movements.
The INST team has been working in this area of photocatalytic water splitting to generate hydrogen for quite some time now. “The energy crisis and ever-threatening climate crisis urged us to work on this promising way of hydrogen production through photocatalytic water splitting. The stability and chemical flexibility of having different organic groups in carbon nitrides triggered us to work on these cost-effective organic semiconductor materials for sustainable hydrogen production,” added Dr. Kamalakannan.
