Nowadays, in India electrical power is a most essential item. Especially for computers, communication and healthcare systems an uninterruptable power supply is needed for correct functioning. To solve the problem of power failures, a standard solution is the installation of a diesel generator supported by a battery stack to provide power in the moment of the blackout.
These batteries are costly, the service life is limited and often they are the most unreliable component in the whole emergency power system (EPS). To solve this drawbacks battery stacks for similar applications are replaced by supercapacitors (supercaps) in western countries. Compared to conventional batteries or accumulator solutions, the advantages of supercaps are the maintenance-free operation, resistance to high temperature fluctuations, low weight and long service life. Applied properly, supercaps could sustain more than 500,000 charge/discharge cycles with efficiency well above 90 %. Further, supercaps do not face the risk of destruction by deep discharge like batteries and hence are less susceptible. The usage of supercaps for small and medium sized EPS, especially in India, has one big disadvantage: The high initial costs of the conventional supercaps.
To solve this problem, the Indo-German project consortium has the intention to create a new LowCostEPS based on mass-printed smart supercaps for small and medium sized applications in the power range of 2.5 till 10 kVA. The LowCostEPS should bridge the time of power interruption until the existing diesel generator provides enough power to run a proper energy supply again. The core idea of the proposed project is to use conventional printing methods, such as gravure, offset or flexographic printing, for the production of low-cost supercaps. Conventional printing methods are well-known for their high productivity and cost-effectiveness due to the mass-production possibility.
Especially in printed electronics these technologies are suitable for mass-production of electronic components with different geometries and layer thicknesses on a flexible substrate in a roll-to-roll process (R2R). Applying such methods, it is possible to produce liquid processed printed energy storages with good electrochemical properties over a large area in a simple way. There are two typical setups, a.) roll-type and b.) multilayer-type, for conventional capacitor types available. The used electrode areas of these two types are prepared by coating and winding or coating, cutting and stacking. Also in post-press production of print products these technology steps are well known. Beside these technologies different other technologies like folding, die-cutting and stamping are used in roll-to-roll or roll-to-sheet post-press production.
The post-press production together with the printing of the final electrode shape, the right amount and shape of electrolyte and shape of the current collector enables a complete inline processing of the final supercap stack. One example of a possible setup for such an inline produced supercapacitor is shown in Figure 5c.) zigzag-type. This type is not producible with conventional coating methods which makes inline printing and post-press very productive and cost competitive.
Among others, the most important objectives of this research project are to develop a carbon-based energy storage in the form of a supercap by means of mass-printing processes on thin paper substrate with a power density of 1Wh/kg and to develop a low-cost circuitry to charge/discharge the supercap that provides power to the system.
ReadA promising alternative for time consuming measurements of pathogens in water is the detection of fecal pigments (FP) as indicator compounds by 2D fluorescence. Pigment analysis is of high efficiency and used for early warning against cyanotoxins in water since a long time.
However, while algae pigments can be measured directly, the fecal pigments are of lower fluorescence effect and therefore the sensitivity as well as selectivity of the measurement has to be improved. The project follows the strategy of selective pre-concentration of the analytes, a method which is online practicable and widely used for trace detection of organic contaminants, e.g. using LC-MSMS. Because of the broad peaks of fluorescence, a new calibration software based on multivariate approach is urgent.
The general project outcome is the online-detection of pathogen-like pollution in water. In detail, theoutcome of the project is described a follow:
Potential users of the new technique could be: drinking and wastewater treating companies as well as companies of food production.
ReadGlobally, nearly 6,000 children die each day due to water-related illnesses. Treatment based approaches must be implemented to minimize these deaths. Rapid (< 1 hr) detection platforms covering most waterborne pathogens of concern, their indicators, and associated sources of antibiotic resistance bacteria on a single chip are urgently needed.
Such platforms must be operable under field conditions with personnel requiring minimal training. This proposal focuses on such a multiplexed chip by adapting an already developed robust and low cost platform (Gene-Z) for on-site water pathogen detection. Genetic markers associated with at least a dozen waterborne pathogens, indicators, and antibiotic resistance bacteria are included on the chip including viability testing to be validated with appropriate sensitivity and specificity.
The proposed project has three objectives: 1) Provision of waterborne pathogens chips and detection systems, 2) Integration of Live vs. Dead (Viability) Protocol on the Chip, and 3) Field Validation, Deployment, Support and Feedback. When fully developed and validated, the chip and platform will provide the a number of key benefits compared to other existing technologies and approaches including fast results, ease of use, specificity, sensitivity, and low cost.
Differentiating characteristic compared to other molecular biology technologies include multiplexing of bacteria and protozoan, use of multiple virulence markers, live vs. dead differentiation, and measurement of antibiotic resistance genes. The consortium combines academic and industry partners with expertise in molecular biology, bioanalytics, and on-site detection technology development.
ReadSemitransparent solar cells could find enormous applications from a window panel to automobile roof top solutions. By definition they require semitransparent active layers and transparent electrodes. The current recipes for realization of a large area technology suffer from process limitations related to deposition of transparent conducting electrodes (TCE) with sufficient transparency and low resistivity.
Other issues are related to electrode stability, upscaling to large areas and flexible substrates. There is also a big demand to replace the expensive indium tin oxide as TCE. Additionally, there is a need to develop printing compatible TCEs which can be applied to any type of surface without the further necessity of welding or soldering. We have demonstrated that micrometer cracks formed in a polymer film can be used as a template to deposit metals and by the lift-off of the polymer template, hybrid metal network TCEs with high transmission and low resistivity can be developed.
The project aims at a) examining the feasibility of printing methods to develop large area TCE metal network b) synthesizing the metal network TCE on flexible substrates such as PET or PEN or paper, c) an alternative metalation method based on solution processing techniques and/or incorporating graphene and d) integrating these TCEs in large area solar cells suitable for window applications.
The uniqueness of this approach is its simplicity and suitability for any kind of metals and their precursors. Since we can control the metal fill factor and the structural width of the metal network by tuning the width of cracks in the polymer film, the conductivity and transmittance of such TCEs can be tuned. In collaboration with the industry partners, the chemistry and the process will be adapted to fulfill the objectives. The proposed work will provide viable solutions to the pertinent issues related to fabrication of ITO-free TCEs.
The application of these electrodes is extendable to other applications such as thermal heaters, sensors, and electrochromic or thermochromic devices. This innovative concept of nanostructured hybrid TCE is a big step towards smart window applications suitable for building integrated photovoltaics.
ReadDissolved water contaminants of inorganic (arsenic, chromate, fluoride, uranium, nitrate or strontium) and organic (pesticides, plasticizers, pharmaceuticals, alkylphenols, endocrine disrupters) origin play an important role in drinking water quality and health. Water guideline values are usually in the ppb (µg/L) region, which makes detection difficult.
Monitoring of such contaminants is time consuming and expensive which poses a significant challenge especially for water supplies in rural areas and/or in developing countries, which present a vast, hugely unexplored and scientifically challenging market. The development of suitable sensor technologies using advanced materials that can be integrated to hand-operated pumps or decentralized water supplies is the subject of this proposal.
The materials will interact with pollutants by covalent, supramolecular or ionic interactions and the detection will subsequently take place by excitation and read-out of the colorimetric signal via commonly available devices such as i-phones. Atomically precise clusters with specific interactions with inorganic and organic contaminants developed by IIT Madras for the detection of heavy metal ions in water at ultra trace levels will be incorporated in electrospun fibres and porous substrates
This technology will be developed further into a sensor device for arsenic in drinking water. Simultaneously the same technology will be expanded further to address specific challenges of chromate, fluoride, a select number of pesticides and alkylphenols (for example) for proof of concept.
The key output from this project will be a working prototype of a visual arsenic sensor systembased on atomically precise clusters incorporated in electrospun membranes (nanofibers spunonto porous membranes or clusters immobilized in porous membranes) which will be;
Co-Principal Investigator
A Subrahmanyam
IIT Madras, Chennai
The main aim of the project is to develop cost-effective, multiplexed label-free fiber optic array biosensor system for simultaneous detection of up to 7 or more waterborne pathogens that are prevalent in Indian sub-continent.
Multi-WAP proposes to develop multiplexed, rapid, accurate, label-free, and real-time method for continuous monitoring the multiple waterborne (faecal) pathogens present in water samples at low cost and high sensitivity (>90%). The analytical/diagnostic platform to be developed is an optical absorbance biosensor, with the prerequisite of having the ability to perform online measurements. Our ambition is to improve the analytical method further to function as a highly efficient screening method for the early detection of life-threatening waterborne diseases in resource-limited settings.
This project addresses a clearly identified need for tests which can significantly surpass the performance of the currently available water monitoring tests. Throughout this project, special attention will be paid to both end-user requirements (performance, cost, ease-of-use) and to manufacturability. The combination of low cost and high accuracy will be achieved through a unique integration of several state-of-the-art concepts, which the partners have separately developed and of which the integration maturity in Multi-WAP platform has to be tested.
IIT (Madras) shall develop the novel fiber optic sensor array with optoelectronic instrumentation and software. The German Research partner (IOT, Braunschweig) shall perform critical surface modifications of the fiber probes. The German industrial partner (LIONEX) shall produce highly specific antibodies to surface biomarkers of E. coli as model analytes and for waterborne faecal pathogens as final arrays followed by their immobilisation on biosensor. The Indian industrial partner (ubio) shall integrate in the device assembly and evaluate the final lab-device using model and pathogen contaminated water samples (along with LIONEX).
LIONEX shall do evaluation and compare the sensor performance with industry standard. Today, there are no analytical methods on the market that fulfil the criteria of being rapid, accurate, label-free, and online for the detection of waterborne pathogens. This is especially true when it comes to screening situations or the performance of diagnoses in resource-limited settings.
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