CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR MECHANICAL ENGINEERS

By, Kedar Padalkar Subodh Nakshine Sreeharsha Akshay Dakhore Amit Chilamwar Prasanna Deshmukh Vinod Gokhre Vikas Kanake Arpit Thakrey Sagar Fating Mahesh Urkude

What are we at..

Make solar energy Economical Provide energy from fusion Replace Fossil Fuel with Hydrogen

Develop carbon sequestration Methods Manage the nitrogen cycle

Make solar energy Economical

As a source of energy, nothing matches the sun Only a small fraction of the suns power output strikes the Earth, but even that provides 10,000 times as much as all the commercial energy that humans use on the planet Out-powers anything that human technology could ever produce

Solar Economy Vision

Today's Solar Cells

Convert sunlight into electricity with an efficiency of only 10 percent to 20 percent. Require pure metals as conductors and hence costly. Take a large amount of space and still produces less power than equivalent thermal/hydro-electric/nuclear power plants. Heavy and very delicate to handle.

Solar Cell of the Future

Use of multilayer solar cells instead of single layer cells having efficiency of around 40% Development of new photoelectric material through nanotechnology that are cheaper to produce and light in weight like Lead-selenium nanocrystals Use the heat energy obtained from the sun to heat fluids and drive engines to produce power through a generator along with the power produced by the photoelectric cells

Provide energy from fusion

Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus accompanied by the release of large quantities of energy Capable of producing around 1 x 1020 J/yr

Half-life of waste around 5o years Earthbound reactors cannot achieve the high pressures of the suns interior but temperatures much higher than the suns can be created to compensate for the lesser pressure, especially if heavier forms of hydrogen, known as deuterium and tritium are fused

Making Fusion Energy Economical

Deuterium is a relatively uncommon form of hydrogen, but water is abundant enough to make deuterium supplies essentially unlimited. Oceans could meet the worlds current energy needs for literally billions of years Tritium is radioactive and is extremely scarce in nature. Simple nuclear reactions can convert lithium(an abundant element in the earths crust) into the tritium needed to fuse with deuterium. As the oceans contain trillions of metric tons of lithium, supply would not be a problem for millions of years.

Controlling Fusion Reaction

Human-engineered fusion has already been demonstrated on a small scale The challenges facing the engineering community are to find ways to scale up the fusion process to commercial proportions, in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way

One method involves using magnetic forces to hold the fusion ingredients together as in ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), currently being built in France

Barriers in making Fusion Reactors work

Materials are needed that can withstand the assaults from products of the fusion reaction and extract heat effectively while surviving the neutron-induced structural weakening for extended periods of time. Methods also will be needed for confining the radioactivity induced by neutrons as well as preventing releases of the radioactive tritium fuel. In addition, interaction of the plasma with reactor materials will produce radioactive dust that needs to be removed.

Building full-scale fusion-generating facilities will require engineering advances to meet challenges, including better superconducting magnets and advanced vacuum systems.

Replacing Fossil Fuel with Hydrogen

Why Hydrogen?
Hydrogen is the most abundant element available in the universe. Currently our machinery runs on oil. Oil pollutes and is available in a limited amount. Hydrogen fuel cells do not pollute Someday, hydrogen may fuel our cars and power and heat our homes and businesses. Moving to a hydrogen economy could help reduce our reliance on foreign oil, improve local air quality, and reduce the risk of climate change. In short, hydrogen could revolutionize the way we use energy.

What exactly is a Hydrogen Car?

In a hydrogen car, its primary source of power is from breaking down hydrogen. The use of hydrogen usually happens by two methods Hydrogen can be burned much like the combustion reaction that takes place in the gas powered cars seen today. This is called a internal hydrogen combustion engine.

Hydrogen can be set up to react with oxygen to produce water and electricity. This is called a fuel cell.

Internal Combustion Hydrogen

Slightly modified form of internal combustion engine Burns hydrogen, produces pure water exhaust Serious range problems BMW has broken several speed records for hydrogen cars and is banking on cars that can run successfully on both gas and hydrogen

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Fuel cells invented in 1838 by Swiss scientist Christian Friedrich Schnbein Aspects of engines as well as batteries No pollution emitted PEM FCs ideal for lightduty vehicles, buildings & much smaller applications

Develop carbon sequestration methods

What is carbon sequestration? Carbon sequestration is capturing the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and storing it safely away from the atmosphere. Why is carbon dioxide a problem? Today carbon in air exceeds 380 molecules per million, and it continues to climb resulting in increase in the temperature of air and thus, resulting in Global Warming.

A grand challenge for the 21st centurys engineers will be developing systems for capturing the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and sequestering it safely away from the atmosphere.

How do you capture CO2?

A chemical system for capturing carbon dioxide is already used at some facilities for commercial purposes, such as beverage carbonation and dry ice manufacture. In coal burning power plants, One tower would contain chemicals that isolate carbon dioxide from the other gases that escape into the air and absorb it. A second tower would separate the carbon dioxide from the absorbing chemicals, allowing them to be returned to the first tower for reuse.

Storage of CO2
Storage in depleted oil fields, offers an important economic advantage where the carbon dioxide interacts with the remaining oil to make it easier to remove. Another possibility is storage in sedimentary rock formations with pores containing salty water. The best sedimentary brine formations would be those more than 800 meters deep ,far below sources of drinking water, and at a depth where high pressure will maintain the carbon dioxide in a high-density state.

Manage the Nitrogen Cycle

Why is the nitrogen cycle important? The nitrogen cycle reflects a more intimate side of energy needs, via its central role in the production of food. It is one of the places where the chemistry of the Earth and life come together, as plants extract nitrogen from their environment, including the air, to make food.

What is wrong with the nitrogen cycle now?

Until recent times, nitrogen fixation by microorganisms was the only way in which nitrogen made its way from the environment into living organisms. Human production of additional nitrogen nutrients, however, has now disrupted the natural nitrogen cycle, with fertilizer accounting for more than half of the annual amount of nitrogen fixation attributed to human activity. A third contributor is nitrogen oxide formed during burning of fuels, where the air becomes so hot that the nitrogen molecule breaks apart.

Why should we care?

Nitrogen removed from the air by human activity adds seriously to a number of environmental problems.

One nitrous oxide molecule, in fact, traps heat about 200 times more effectively than each molecule of carbon dioxide.
Nitrous oxide also remains in the air for a long time on the order of a century because it does not dissolve easily in water and resists reacting with other chemicals. Consequently it eventually reaches the stratosphere where sunlight breaks it into nitric oxide, a key link in the chain of reactions that damages the Earths protective ozone layer.

What can engineering do?

Engineering strategies to increase denitrification could help reduce the excess accumulation of fixed nitrogen. Similarly, technological approaches should be improved to help further control the release of nitrogen oxides produced in high-temperature burning of fuels. Technological methods for applying fertilizer more efficiently could ensure that a higher percentage of the fertilizer ends up in the plants as organic nitrogen. Engineering challenges include finding ways of capturing those gases for useful purposes, and converting manure into pelletized organic fertilizer. Solutions that focus on integrated ways of reducing greenhouse and other gas emissions from wastes, while at the same time improving their potential as economically transported fertilizer, are needed.

Conclusion
In todays fast paced world, current energy sources have become the most precious resources. Current sources are non-renewable and pollute a lot. Hence new sources have to be discovered. For that new technology has to be developed. This is where we come in.