Energy and Environment


Modern society is seriously experiencing a menace of increased green house gases and associated environmental ill-impact. To add to the misery, overall storage of natural fossil fuel is depleting very rapidly in order to keep pace with the progress in human lifestyle. Therefore, burning of fossil fuel to generate more energy, and in synchronicity, increased environmental pollution are posing serious threat. To cater to the issues associated with environmental pollution and energy shortage, two way developments are aimed at. One way is to enhance the efficiency, so that very little fuel is required to do any function. For example, if the weight of the car is reduced by suitable engineering of design components or developing new light weight high strength materials, like Mg-based, Al-based or Ti-based, the efficiency increases many-fold. Another classic example is to develop LEDs so that very little power will be consumed. On the other hand, to replenish the need for massive demand of energy, coming up with alternative fuels or energy sources is to be thought of. For example, proper use of sun-light in the form of solar cell, wind power, etc., are some of the exciting avenues to meet the energy demand.

Our department is actively involved both ways. There are active research groups on the development of solar cell as well LEDs and several faculty members along with a set of motivated graduate students are pivotal in finding alternate green energy resources. On the other extreme, there is also active participation of faculty members in the field of development of light weight materials for future car and structural applications. Therefore, we are a department looking forward to future aspiration of the nation as a whole for a better living.

  

List of Faculty working in this area: