Department of Chemical Engineering

&ldquo;IIT Jodhpur is committed to impart quality education to facilitate the creation of qualified, competent and responsible human resources to meet the emerging technological challenges of the world. It is working towards creating an equitable learning platform that is positive, accessible and effective in the face of the modern societal and scientific advancements.

Flexibility in curriculum, in all its academic programs, encompassing elements of teaching, research, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship is the most unique feature of IIT Jodhpur. The Department of Science and Technology (DST), under the National Mission on Cyber Physical Systems, has identified IIT Jodhpur as a Technology &amp; Innovation Hub in the area of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. The institute has also been nominated as the coordinator for the Jodhpur City and Knowledge Cluster by the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India.

The sprawling 852-acre IIT Jodhpur campus is a majestic tribute to the deep-rooted diverse cultural heritage of the region. The campus is an architectural masterpiece, which is slated to become an international exemplar of sustainability with net-zero energy, and advanced water and waste management strategies.&rdquo;

IIT Jodhpur

When a nuclear reactor is used to supply steam for a desalination plant, the method of coupling has a significant technical and economic impact. The exact method of coupling depends on the type of reactor and the type of desalination plant. As a part of Nuclear Desalination Demonstration Project (NDDP), BARC has successfully commissioned a 4500 m3/day multi-stage flash desalination plant coupled to Madras Atomic Power Station at Kalpakkam. A desalination plant coupled to nuclear reactor of pressurised heavy water reactor type is a good example of dual-purpose nuclear desalination plant. This paper presents the thermal coupling system analysis of this plant along with technical and safety aspects. © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

World University root node

International Journal of Nuclear Desalination

Thermal coupling system analysis of a nuclear desalination plant

Process control is an essential part of the desalination industry that requires to be operated under optimum conditions to increase the lifetime of the plant and reduce the unit product cost. Improved process control is a costeffective approach to energy conservation and increased process profitability. The Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) plant involves many complicated operations related to steam, chemicals and seawater. These include variable capacity, slow dynamics, deadtime characteristics due to certain load changes, significant effects of small deviations from design conditions on plant operation, effects of power plant output conditions on the desalination plant, instability due to disturbances in steam supply and water temperature variations. Keeping in view the above criticalities, the selection of an effective control system becomes inevitable. This paper aims at identifying various types of control loop available in an MSF plant, selection of control elements, type of control strategy needed for it and integrating the whole system for supervisory control. © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Process control in Multi-Stage Flash desalination industry

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are self-renewing pluripotent cells with relevance to treatment of numerous medical conditions. However, a global understanding of the role of the hESC proteome in maintaining pluripotency or triggering differentiation is still largely lacking. The emergence of top-down proteomics has facilitated the identification and characterization of intact protein forms that are not readily apparent in bottom-up studies. Combined with metabolic labeling techniques such as stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC), quantitative comparison of intact protein expression under differing experimental conditions is possible. Herein, quantitative top-down proteomics of hESCs is demonstrated using the SILAC method and nano-flow reverse phase chromatography directly coupled to a linear-ion-trap Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer (nLC-LTQ-FT-ICR-MS). In this study, which to the best of our knowledge represents the first top-down analysis of hESCs, we have confidently identified 11 proteins by accurate intact mass, MS/MS, and amino acid counting facilitated by SILAC labeling. Although quantification is challenging due to the incorporation of multiple labeled amino acids (i.e., lysine and arginine) and arginine to proline conversion, we are able to quantitatively account for these phenomena using a mathematical model. © 2010.

Fulltext

Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry

Quantitative top-down proteomics of SILAC labeled human embryonic stem cells

This paper describes INFMED (Indo-French MED simulator) Software Version 1 that is being developed, under the Indo-French collaboration, to simulate the steady state and the dynamics of a Multi-Effect Distillation Mechanical Vapour Compression (MED-VC) Desalination system. The main objectives of the simulator are to permit a thorough understanding of the steady state design, to study the behaviour of the plant under various transients, to provide training of potential operators, engineers and students, and to allow the further development of new strategies for control as well as for process optimisation. INFMED is basically designed for parallel feed configurations of MED plant coupled to MVC (mechanical vapour compression) but thermal vapour compression models currently under development would also be incorporated later on. The software will be validated with the help of operating data obtained from the Indian installation (50 m3/day MED-VC, currently under construction at BARC, Trombay). INFMED is built in Visual Basic and can be installed on computers running on the Windows 9x/2000/XP operating systems. It offers a very user-friendly graphical user interface for simulating steady and dynamic states and also for viewing the results in both tabulated as well as in a graphical forms. The dynamic state model of an effect was taken from the CEA MED simulator, which is derived from basic mass, energy and momentum conservation equations and supplementary correlation for heat transfer and physical properties. Results of a test case, derived from an operating BARC MED-VC installation, show that the behaviour of multiple variables in the steady state and in the case of postulated transients is indeed very well represented. A complete validation of the simulator results against data from the operating BARC MED-VC installation will be reported later. © 2010 Desalination Publications.

Desalination and Water Treatment

Development of a dynamic simulator (INFMED) for the MED/VC plant

The act of enrichment or improving the quality of product concentration, i.e. pre-concentration, has been studied with respect to uranium plant effluent, which contains uranium in 1030 ppm level intermingled with a huge number of interfering ions, such as magnesium, in percent level. The effects of different operating conditions, such as concentration of uranium in the effluent, pH, the time required for uptake of uranium and the effect of the presence of other elements in the effluent, in batch experiments have been investigated. Using this in-house novel resin for preferential uranium uptake, the sorbed matrix has been eluted with different eluant concentration for further enrichment of radionuclides in the elute. High uptake values for uranium ions prove its selectivity, and fractional elution ensures further reuse of sorbent and significant improvement in uranium enrichment.

Recovery and pre-concentration of uranium from secondary effluent using novel resin

Uranium and vanadium are valuable trace metals in seawater. The economic viability of recovery of these metals depends on development of efficient sorbents. The radiation induced graft polymerization technique was adopted in this study to prepare metal chelate embedded polymers in sheet form in order to investigate the recovery the heavy metals from seawater, using different non woven substrate materials. In order to obtain more direct information on the grafting levels, the parametric studies to see the influence of cumulative dose, retention time in air, surrounding atmosphere, and reaction temperature on grafting yields were investigated using different electron beam energies. The grafted sorbents were verified by infrared spectroscopic measurements, and thermal properties were analyzed by scanning calorimetric methods. Metal sorption characteristics for uranium and vanadium were evaluated through in-field trials at seawaters of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Indian Ocean, and Arabian Sea along Indian coastal lines. © 2010 American Chemical Society.

Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research

Parametric studies on radiation grafting of polymeric sorbents for recovery of heavy metals from seawater

Numerous experimental strategies exist for relative protein quantification, one of the primary objectives of mass spectrometry based proteomics analysis. These strategies mostly involve the incorporation of a stable isotope label via either metabolic incorporation in cell or tissue culture (15N/ 14N metabolic labeling, stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC)), chemical derivatization (ICAT, iTRAQ, TMT), or enzymatically catalyzed incorporation (18O labeling). Also, these techniques can be cost or time prohibitive or not amenable to the biological system of interest (i.e., metabolic labeling of clinical samples, most animals, or fungi). This is the case with the quantification of fungal proteomes, which often require auxotroph mutants to fully metabolically label. Alternatively, label-free strategies for protein quantification such as using integrated ion abundance and spectral counting have been demonstrated for quantification affording over 2 orders of magnitude of dynamic range which is comparable to metabolic labeling strategies. Direct comparisons of these quantitative techniques are largely lacking in the literature but are highly warranted in order to evaluate the capabilities, limitations, and analytical variability of available quantitative strategies. Here, we present the direct comparison of SILAC to label-free quantification by spectral counting of an identical set of data from the bottom-up proteomic analysis of human embryonic stem cells, which are readily able to be quantified using both strategies, finding that both strategies result in a similar number of protein identifications. We also discuss necessary constraints for accurate quantification using spectral counting and assess the potential of this label-free strategy as a viable alternative for quantitative proteomics. © 2010 American Chemical Society.

Analytical Chemistry

Direct comparison of stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture and spectral counting for quantitative proteomics

High Temperature Gas cooled Reactors (HTGRs) are designed to have relatively higher thermal efficiency and enhanced safety & environmental characteristics. It can provide energy for combined production of hydrogen, electricity and other industrial applications. The waste heat available in the HTGR power cycle can also be utilized for desalination of seawater for producing potable water. Desalination is an energy intensive process, so use of waste heat from HTGR certainly makes desalination process more economical. Design of coupling system of desalination plant with HTGR as per the safety design requirement of nuclear desalination plant is very crucial. The paper describes the design of the coupling system of hybrid Multi Effect Desalination-Reverse Osmosis (MED-RO) nuclear desalination plant with HTGR to utilize the waste heat in HTGR is discussed. It also discusses the deterministic safety analysis of the coupling system is presented in detail. The analysis shows that the coupling system meets the acceptance criteria for all the Postulated Initiating Events (PIE's) limited to Design Basis Accident (DBA). © 2010 IEEE.

2010 2nd International Conference on Reliability, Safety and Hazard, ICRESH-2010: Risk-Based Technology and Physics-of-Failure Methods

Safety analysis of hybrid nuclear desalination plant coupled to High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor

Pressure driven membrane processes are widely used in various separation related applications ranging from production of drinking water from sea water and brackish water to separation of valuables from product streams or effluent management in industries. Research works are going on world over to develop novel membrane materials with superior performance having high selectivity, high throughput and better life. The research works cover all important fields of membrane separation including development of novel materials for membranes, development of new processes of making membranes and modification of membranes to achieve improved performances. In reverse osmosis (RO), to make membranes with better solute rejection and superior flux novel techniques are adopted like modification of reaction mixtures by added chemicals like multi functionary tertiary amine alcohol or polar compounds like triethylene glycol octyl methyl ether which eventually modifies the resulting membranes. For fouling resistant RO membranes methods have been developed where polymers resemble like brushes so that fouling is minimized. Membranes have been developed which are resistant to degradation due to oxidation. In nanofiltration (NF), in addition to development of fouling resistant membranes, new techniques have been developed for solvent resistant membranes. For microfiltration and ultrafiltration techniques have been developed for fouling resistant membranes by a novel layered coating of membranes. The present review describes some of the important works on membrane development, especially discovery of new polymeric membrane materials covering these aspects, disclosed in the patents in recent times. © 2010 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.

Recent Patents on Chemical Engineering

Recent advances in polymeric membranes for pressure driven applications

Provision of safe drinking water is one of the key drivers in our technological pursuits. A number of villages are suffering from a variety of water quality problems due to excess salinity, iron, arsenic, fluoride, nitrate and microbial contamination. Several national laboratories are working on desalination and other water purification technologies. Desalination technologies based on RO or thermal processes can be set up in remote areas depending on the local s like Lakshadweep islands, barge mounted seawater desalination plants would be more suited in view of the space constraints. Point of use devices provide safe drinking water directly. BARe know-how based on domestic water purifier has been found to be one of the affordable, convenient and safe devices to ensure microbiologically safe water. Devices with higher capacities based on ultra filtration membrane can be used for community water purification.