Scientists of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras and National Thermal Power Corporation ltd, the country’s power giant, have succeeded in developing a path breaking and innovative material capable of rejuvenating considerably the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
“This innovation will help us to minimise the wear and tear as well as damages caused to components of the machines,” Dr Sundara Ramaprabhu, Head, Alternative Energy & Nanotechnology lab, IIT-Madras who led the team of research scholars in the three-year long research told The Pioneer.
Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, an international peer-reviewed journal has published the findings of the IIT-Madras team in its latest issue..
The country losses 4 per cent of its GDP every year because of corrosion, wear and tear, according to Baldev Raj, former director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Chennai. The nano-lubricant developed by Dr Ramaprabhu and his team will resolve this issue.
Machines get damaged because of continuous friction between its parts. Though lubricant oils are deployed to bring down the friction, they are not that effective and needs replacement quite frequently. What Dr Ramaprabhu and his team did was to change the character of the lubricant oils used in some of the critical components. The NTPC, which was looking forward to means to increase the longevity of its machines and bring down the operational costs had contacted Dr Ramaprabhu with their problems.
Dr Ramaprabhu, an authority on nano materials, studied the normal lubricant oil and decided to make certain alterations in its structure. With the help of Dr Rashmi Chandrabhan Shende, a Nagpur-born physicist, Dr Ramaprabhu converted the normal lubricant oil to nano-lubricant oil. This he did by dispersing nano particles in the lubricant oil with the aid of probe sonicator, a device used to suspend nano particles uniformly in the oil.
The nano-particles were made out of graphene oxide and the nano-lubricant was termed as “nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide”. “The result we got with nano-lubricant was a pleasant surprise. The coefficient of friction as well the wear and tear got reduced by 20 per cent. The operational temperature fell by 15 per cent when the nano-lubricant was deployed in the Induced Draft Fan , the most crucial component in a power generator,” explained Dr Ramaprabhu.
Velayudhan Pillai Jayan, deputy general manager (research and development) NTPC, who worked with Dr Ramaprabhu, said that it was a dream come true. “We are using nano material in a power generation unit for the first time. The results were simply superb. The operational temperature came down drastically. The wear and tear got reduced and the longevity of the engineering components was considerably increased,” Jayan told The Pioneer over telephone from the Greater Noida laboratories of NETRA ( NTPC Energy Technology Research Alliance).
The IDF is the component which sucks out the coal-burnt gas from the boiler of the power unit. “The energy consumption level of the IDF showed remarkable reduction when we used this nano-lubricant oil in place of the routine oil. If this nano-lubricant is deployed in all the 71 units of the NTPC, the operational costs would come down by Rs 40 crore per year,” said Dr Ramaprabhu.
Rashmi Shende said this was the tip of the ice berg. “We can deploy nano-lubricant oil in all systems which use lubricants. The composition may need some alterations,” said Rashmi. Nisha Ranjan, a Ph D scholar will continue the research project for new nano lubricants.
Nano –lubricants may soon replace all kind of lubrication oils in various engineering applications like motor vehicle engines and other mechanical systems. “This is an ongoing research. Right now we have developed nano-lubricants for power generators. More such products are on the anvil,” explained Dr Sundara Ramaprabhu, who had developed nano materials for treating effluent water and purifying polluted river waters. Perhaps he has the solution for cleaning the waters of Ganga. Are you listening, Prime Minister ModiIJ