Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
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Contents |
2016, rankings
National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF): ranked No. 4
The Times of India, April 14, 2016
The rankings under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) have been carried out in four categories: Engineering, management, pharmacy and university.
There were five key parameters on which an academic institutes were assessed, these include: Teaching, learning and resources; Research, consulting and collaborative performance; Graduation outcome; Outreach and inclusivity; and Perception.
Over 3,500 institutes participated in inaugural edition of these rankings, the process for which started in December 2015. With a weightage of 82.03, IIT Delhi is fourth on the premier list. It was established in the year 1961.
Research & Development
2017, achievements
Krittika Sharma, Fighting disasters the IIT way, April 20, 2017: The Times of India
In 2016, the research and development department signed an MoU with DRDO to establish a Joint Advanced Technology Centre. The projects are under three groups -advanced ballistic and protection technology , smart and intelligent textile technology , and advanced electromagnetic devices and terahertz technologies.
Suddhasatwa Basu, associate dean of research and technology , said it would be the first time that the defence services would use an Indian body model to understand the effects of a blast. “Currently , they are procuring American software, but they have a different body structure as compared to Indians,“ he added.
The students are also rese arching Other technologies developed include research for a material that is easy to handle, light to wear, and can break the impact of a bullet. “We are also working on the ways soldiers can wear mart uniforms with antennas woven in the textile. Their supervisors sitting at a remote place can then warn them of hazardous changes in the environment,“ Basu said. The students have also de veloped a new app, Timble, which allows them to log in their attendance at a certain time of the day . The app will record the position of the student and send out alerts to them in case the professor decides to reschedule classes.
Brejesh Lall, faculty-incharge of the project, said that in case students do not have smartphones, the information can be logged in online through a computer. “This app will minimise fraud that is common among other systems, like the biometric one,“ said Dhananjay Goel, a BTech student and MD of the app.
IIT director M Balakrishnan said, “More students are now getting involved in startups. The cynicism of stating something new is slowly fading away .“
2017, Activated jamun used to remove fluoride from water
R. Prasad, October 21, 2017: The Hindu
The activated jamun powder can be reused up to five times by heating it to 50 degree C
Now, while removing excess fluoride from drinking water, the usual problems such as high operational costs and getting rid of toxic sludge will be a thing of the past. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad have used activated jamun seed powder to bring the fluoride content in drinking water to less than the WHO limit of 1.5 mg per litre. The results were published in the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering.
The team led by Dr. Chandra S. Sharma from the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad mixed the jamun seed powder thoroughly with potassium hydroxide and heated it to 900 degree C for an hour to produce activated jamun powder. The activation increases the pore volume several times and the surface area by more than 50 times. As a result, the fluoride adsorption efficiency increased several times compared to samples that were not treated with KOH but heated to 900 degree C.
The fluoride ion removal increases with a decrease in pH, with maximum adsorption found at pH 3. The activated jamun seed acquires a positive charge at low pH and the positive charge attracts the fluoride ions while the negative charge in an alkaline medium repulses the fluoride ions.
With fluoride adsorption capacity of 3.65 milligram per gram, activated jamun seed was close to tea ash (3.75 milligram per gram) but much higher than other substances such as banana peel, coffee husk, and coconut shell.
“Besides testing the activated jamun seed powder in the lab we also tested it using groundwater taken from Nalgonda village, which is one of the worst fluoride-affected villages in India. After two hours of contact time, we were able to reduce the fluoride content from 3.2 milligram per litre to less than 1.5 milligram per litre, which is the WHO limit,” says Dr. Sharma.
On heating the activated jamun powder to 50 degree C, the fluoride gets desorbed and the jamun powder can be reused up to five times. “About 96% of the fluoride can be desorbed. So there is a loss of only 4% efficiency after each desorption,” he says.
Disposal of sludge
Disposal of the fluoride sludge is another area that the team is working on. “The fluoride ions desorbed from the activated carbon will be present in very small quantity of water. We can add sodium hydroxide to this water to produce sodium fluoride,” he says. The major objective of the current study was to evaluate the fluoride removal efficiency using a novel, low-cost activated carbon.
“We will next be testing the efficiency of the activated jamun powder in water containing multiple ions such as fluoride, arsenic and heavy metals,” says Ramya Araga the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad and the first author of the paper.
“We have so far carried out all tests in batches. We need to now undertake column studies,” says Araga. The continuous flow parameters have to be optimised to achieve best results; during the batch studies, two hours of contact time was needed for the fluoride to be removed.
