Research News

A research study to predict the waning of the second wave of COVID-19 in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala & West Bengal

In the current pandemic situation, a pertinent question is the estimate of time by which the second wave of COVID – 19 spread could be contained and normalcy would return. In this context, Prof. D. Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, SRM University – AP initiated the study to predict the End-Time of COVID – 19 in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala & West Bengal. Dr. Soumyajyoti Biswas of SRM University – AP along with 4 B.Tech Students: Mr. Anvesh Reddy, Mr. Hanesh Koganti, Mr. Sai Krishna, and Mr. Suhas Reddy have carried out an interesting study to predict the end time of the second wave of COVID – 19 spread in these states. Study employed Susceptible – Infected – Recovered (SIR) Model making use of the information on the COVID – 19 affected people and the number of recovered people, the data which the state governments make them available. SRM Team made use of these data employed SIR Model and applied the methods of Machine Learning. The End -Times of the spread of COVID-19 for different states are given in the following table:

End-Time is defined as the date on which the number of COVID affected cases get reduced to 5% of the peak number of cases occurred in the particular state.

The model is also validated with the actuals occurred in the States of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh: Peak of 37,944 was n 24^th April 2021 and 5% of the peak number is 1897 and is predicted to occur on 27^th May with an error of -2 days to +3 days
Actuals: 27^th May: 3179, 28^th May: 2276, 29^th May: 2014, 30^th May: 1864

Delhi: Peak of 28,935 was on 20^th April 2021 and 5% of the peak number is 1490 and is predicted to occur on 28^th May with an error of – 2 days to + 2 days
Actuals:26^th May: 1491, 27^th May : 1072, 28^th May : 1141

The validation mentioned of the end-times of the second wave of COVID-19 spread increases our confidence level to the predictions made for other states also.

It can be noticed that in the States of West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh, the second wave of COVID-19 continues to spread for longer periods and errors are large compared to the other states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. Perhaps, these factors could be attributed to the large gatherings that have occurred in the 4 states on several occasions.

Prof Narayana Rao said that these predictions mentioned above could help in estimating the impact on medium and small business sectors. In the education sector, it could help in planning the academic sessions, examinations, etc. It could also help to plan necessary medical infrastructure for healthcare in different states.

The details of the study can be found in [2105.13288] Machine learning predictions of COVID-19 second wave end-times in Indian states (arxiv.org)

Dr Satish Anamalamudi, Assistant Professor, in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering has published a research paper titled “Cooperative Caching Scheme for Machine-to-Machine Information-Centric IoT Networks” in the IEEE Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The research paper is co-authored by Dr Mohammed Saeed Alkatheiri and Dr Eesa Al Solami of University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Dr Abdur Rashid Sangi of Yibin University, China.

According to the authors, Information-centric networks (ICNs), a foreseen future Internet architecture, focuses on the application content rather than its hosting location. With this, the existing Internet protocol (IP)-based host-centric communication model can be transformed into a content-centric communication model with the support of in-network caching, name-based routing, and location-independent content domain names. Recently, ICN is proposed to be a potential Internet architecture for Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks due to minimal retrieval delays and reduced load on the data producer. Content retrieval from IoT nodes plays a prominent role in enhancing the performance of the ICN-IoT networks. The in-network caching of ICN enhances the data availability in the network, overcome the issue of single-point failure, and improve IoT devices power efficiency. In this work, the authors explore a cooperative caching scheme for information-centric-IoT networks to optimize the cache hit with the support of a caching network topology model, a content popularity model, and an exogenous request access model.

Dr Satish says that ICN proposes to shift the existing complex Internet model to a simple and generic one. This approach considers the content as the first-class network citizen. In ICN, contents are addressed and routed by their unique names and are decoupled from the address of the node storing it. In this way, consumers ask for information by its name rather than its locality address. In ICN, every content is identified by using a unique, persistent and location-independent name. A wide set of IoT applications is inherently information-centric. In fact, the majority of IoT applications target data regardless of its source. For instance, environmental monitoring applications are oblivious to the information origin. ICN is a promising candidate for IoT environments. It can natively support IoT scenarios while improving data dissemination and reducing network complexity.

Dr Satish Anamalamudi had been a Research Engineer with Huawei Technologies, Beijing, China. He also worked with the Huaiyin Institute of Technology (HYIT), Huai’an, China, until February 2018. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh. His research interests include the common-control-channel design for MAC and routing protocols in cognitive radio ad hoc networks, MAC, and routing protocol design of Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G networks.

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICJECE.2020.3046844

Dr Imran Pancha, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, has recently published a paper titled “Deep eutectic solvents and Ionic liquid assisted hydrolysis of microalgal biomass: A promising approach towards sustainable biofuel production” in the celebrated Journal of Molecular Liquids (2021): 116264 (Impact Factor-5.065). The study was conducted in association with Akshay Kulshrestha, Sandhya Mishra, and Arvind Kumar from CSIR-CSMCRI

Microalgae is recently considered one of the promising biomasses for the production of renewable energy such as biodiesel and bioethanol. Microalgae are tiny photosynthetic organisms that utilise atmospheric CO2, water and sunlight to produce carbohydrates and lipids, which can be converted into renewable fuels. Compared to higher plants, microalgae is a good platform for bioethanol production as they do not contain any lignin in their cell composition, which makes pre-treatment for biomass hydrolysis easy. In the present study, Dr Pancha and his team explored the use of green solvents ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DESs) for microalgal hydrolysis. They observed that among the eight tested ionic liquids, ethyl ammonium nitrate (EAN) resulted in the highest saccharification yield of 95.5%. Whereas, among hydrophobic deep eutectic solvents, menthol: lactic acid (Me: LA) exhibited the highest saccharification yield of 85.7% and also did not require any additional high temperature or other pre-treatments for biomass hydrolysis, indicating as the potential solvent system for microalgal biomass hydrolysis. Overall, the present study results indicated that the identified IL and DES could be used as a green and sustainable alternative for the pre-treatment of microalgal biomass for bioethanol production.

Due to limited fossil fuel reserve as well as environmental issues like high greenhouse gas emission and other environmental problems, finding green and sustainable energy resource is of prime importance for today’s world. To solve this problem, microalgae are among the best resources for producing renewable resources due to it’s high growth rate and photosynthetic ability. Microalgae also have the ability to obtain nutrients from various wastewater, so they also do not require fresh water for cultivation. However, commercial-scale production of microalgae-based biofuels faces various problems such as cultivation cost, downstream processing for biofuel production etc. In this regard, in the present work, Dr Pancha demonstrated the use of ILs and DESs for pre-treatment of microalgal biomass for reducing sugar production, which can be further utilised to produce bioethanol.

Dr Pancha and his research group are further devoted to understanding the molecular mechanism behind the accumulation of energy reserved compounds in the microalgae and developing a sustainable biorefinery process to extract biofuels and other industrially relevant compounds from single microalgal biomass.

Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2021.116264

Ms Sreelekha Bhuvaneswari, a BSc physics final year student, in SRM University AP, Andhra Pradesh, filed a patent for her work titled “A fibre material with moisture retention capacity with thermal tolerance and a method for manufacture” under the guidance of Dr Sabyasachi Mukhopadhyay, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, SRM University-AP.

The project, with the patent application number 202141023375, develops a methodology to design a fabric cloth that would replace the use of air conditioners. This cloth design is inspired by Saharan silver ants which regulate their body temperatures in the scorching desert heat and also from the cooling properties of clay. This research would significantly scale down the usage of AC and other cooling devices in warm places, thus reducing the use of electricity and emission of greenhouse gases to the environment. As this cloth would be environment friendly with long durability and cost-efficiency, Sreelekha hopes that this research would bridge the socioeconomic divide of haves and have-nots between communities.

“I am grateful to Dr Sabyasachi sir for his constant help and guidance along the way. There were several failed models, but he believed in the concept and that inspired me to go forward with the project,” said Ms Bhuvaneswari. “The facilities at the University made the process seamless; once the proposal was made, the procedure was automated. I thank the officials of SRM University-AP for believing in my proposal and helping me get through the procedures smoothly. If it were not for the facilities available at my university, I could not have finished the design,” She added.

A scientific research paper has been published by Dr Lakhveer Singh, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, SRM University-AP.

“The Role of Conductive Nanoparticles in Anaerobic Digestion: Mechanism, Current Status, and Future Perspectives”, published in the Chemosphere Journal, discusses in detail the application of conductive nanoparticles to enhance the AD process efficiency and the interaction between microbes in anaerobic conditions for electron transfer with the help of CNPs. Application of a variety of conductive nanomaterials as an additive is discussed with their potential biogas production and treatment enhancement in the anaerobic digestion process. The Impact factor of the journal is 5.77.

Dr Singh is an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery – Springer (I.F. 2.60) and a Guest Editor for Bioresource Technology Reports- Elsevier. His future research targets to reduce the component costs and test the proposed design using real waste streams, as well as continue to increase the reactor volume.

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130601

“Compact Inertial Electrostatic Confinement D-D Fusion Neutron Generator” is an imbuing research paper co-authored and published by Dr Somesh Vinayak Tewari, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE), SRM University – AP, in the scientific journal, Annals of Nuclear Energy.

This paper is part of an interdisciplinary work leveraging the areas of both electrical engineering and physics. Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) Systems are simple, compact and operate on high voltage discharge in Deuterium- Deuterium (D-D)/ Deuterium-Tritium (D-T) gases between concentric grids for neutron generation. Such systems find considerable applications in the detection of explosives and illicit materials, radiography, tomography, and neutron well logging. The IEC system cathode temperature is measured with a Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) during the measurement of neutrons from the system. FBG is optical fibre sensors that can be used for sensing temperature by recording the Bragg wavelength shift. The advantage of such measurements is that they can be used in environments such as electric arcs and plasmas, chemical and nuclear zones unaffected by electromagnetic fields such that the signals can be monitored remotely.

The production of neutron fluxes for the above-mentioned applications is through radioisotopes, accelerators, or nuclear reactors with the inherent nature of their complexity, hazards, and problem of residual radioactivity. Additionally, such systems require a considerable amount of shielding and Dr Tewari puts forth such factors that prompt further research in the area of the development of much simpler compact IEC systems.

The said research project has been carried out under the scheme of “Mentoring of Engineering Teacher by an INAE Fellow”, financially supported by the Indian National Academy of Engineering. The work goes forward in close collaboration with Pulsed Power & Electromagnetic Division, Beam Technology Development Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)-Vishakhapatnam.

The future projects of Dr Tewari involve working on simulations related to the compact IEC for study, analysis, optimization of different parameters of an IEC system and related experimentation in collaboration with BARC.

Dr Lakhveer Singh, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, SRM University-AP, sets forth advanced avenues of scientific research on maintaining high current densities which is a key challenge in scaling-up microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) reactors.

“Scaling-up Up-flow Microbial Electrolysis Cells with a Compact Electrode Configuration for Continuous Hydrogen Production”, published in the Bioresource Technology journal is about a novel 10 L microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) reactor with a total electrode surface area greater than 1 m2 was designed and evaluated for hydrogen production. Performances of the reactor suggest that the longitudinal structure with the parallel vertical orientation of the electrodes encouraged high fluid mixing and the sheet metal electrode frames provided distributed electrical connection. A high volumetric H2 production rate of 5.9 L/L/d was achieved at a volumetric current density of 970 A/m3 (34 A/m2). The Impact factor of the journal is 7.53.

Dr Singh encapsulates that the technology and the model to be developed can be used to formulate new designs and processing parameters for producing H2 from other types of feedstocks and/or using engineered microbes developed by other researchers, which could solve the fuel problem for modern society. This work has been done in collaboration with Prof. Hong Liu from Oregon State University (OSU), USA.

Dr Singh is an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery – Springer (I.F. 2.60) and a Guest Editor for Bioresource Technology Reports- Elsevier. His future research targets to reduce the component costs and test the proposed design using real waste streams, as well as continue to increase the reactor volume.

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125030

When the Covid-19 outbreak crippled the world, P Mohan Aditya, a 3rd-year Mechanical Engineering student from SRM University-AP, made an initiative of developing the highly useful face shield made from bio-degradable substances. He named it “Facial Shield 2.0”, as it was an improved version of the ordinary face shields. The innovative features added to it helped him to earn the copyright to his credit. On May 16, 2020, Aditya filed an application on the face shield design under the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) with Indian Patent Office, located in Kolkata, India. In 2021, a copyright was granted for the” Face Shield for Humans” with a Design Application Number of 329364 – 001.

The face shield 2.0 serves as the outer defence to the mucous membranes (nose, eyes, and mouth) and comes with a transparent visor made of a thin layer of 175-micron reusable plastic and a highly durable headband made of 3-ply corrugated cardboard. The cardboard’s bursting strength is 16kg/sq.cm, which is quite durable yet lightweight. Due to the use of biodegradable materials, the price of a face shield is at an affordable cost of INR 15. The face shield 2.0, made with firm elastic, is adjustable and suitable for all head sizes for comfortable wear without hurting the head.

Shri Adimulapu Suresh, Hon’ble Minister of Education, Andhra Pradesh and Sri Nandigama Suresh, Hon’ble MP, appreciated the student’s efforts in the Secretariat’s premises. Aditya received high accolades from the guests present on his first successful invention. They also distributed face shields among state police officers, paramedics and other frontline workers deployed in the containment areas.

In a conversation with P Mohan Aditya, he says, “With an increasing environmental degradation, we should move to the eco-friendly alternatives to develop products/services. Therefore, I thought to develop face shields from reusable plastic and cardboard, which are easily degradable. After discovering a shortage in the supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) globally, the idea struck my mind. Immediately I started researching on developing a piece of standard equipment to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. I am thankful to Mr Ravi, the attorney at SRM-AP, who supported me throughout the tough times by answering all doubts amidst challenging circumstances.”

Aditya’s invention turned out to be a successful project both for the University and the public. The leadership team of SRM University-AP – Dr P Sathyanarayanan, President, Prof V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor, and Prof D Narayana Rao, Pro-Vice-Chancellor expressed their happiness on Aditya’s success by congratulating him on developing the face shield and making use of eco-friendly technology.

Using the CAD software, Aditya designed the transparent visor of the face shield and fabricated the remaining headband with the CNC machine. The CAD model was used as the input to the CNC machine, Following the design, the CNC machine analysed and cut the cardboard and transparent sheet accordingly.

P Mohan Aditya’s another innovative design on “building block for bed” was applied for a copyright on 09-08-2020. The building block for bed is again an innovative work of making beds using reusable materials for COVID 19 patients. He and his team also successfully created an electric bicycle using a 24V 250Watt DC motor powered by a 12V and 12Ah battery as a team assignment. Aditya desires to be a successful engineer and creator of such inventions for the betterment of society.

Dr Satya Pramod Jammy, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh, has received a total outlay of Rs. 38,61, 264/- from Department of Science and Technology (DST) Science and Engineering Research Board, Government of India, to work on the project titled “Wall effects in Shock wave boundary layer interactions”. Using the grant, state-of-the-art HPC computational facilities based on the exciting General Purpose Graphic Processing Units (GPGPU’s) will be set up to perform missiles and space vehicle research at SRM University AP. Understanding the fundamental physics of how these vehicles behave in challenging atmospheres will contribute a lot to the design of current and future space vehicles re-entering from space into earth and mars atmospheres. The project aims to develop methods that can capture high-resolution images (like a DSLR camera) of these flows using minimal computational resources.

Dr Jammy is an expert in multi-scale modelling of turbulent flows at high Mach numbers. He is also the lead developer of OpenSBLI, a free and open-source software (FOSS) distributed to the community for free. Dr Jammy and his group will focus on unravelling the concepts like engine unstart in SCRAMJETS, design of better aerodynamic control surfaces for re-entry.

Professor Ranjit Thapa, Head of the Department of Physics, has recently published a paper “Unveiling the Genesis of the High Catalytic Activity in Nickel Phthalocyanine for Electrochemical Ammonia Synthesis” in the renowned Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Royal Society of Chemistry (Impact Factor: 11.301). The work has been done in collaboration with the Department of Industrial Chemistry & Applied Chemistry, Swami Vivekananda Research Centre, Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur Math, Howrah; Rubber Technology Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur; and Atomic & Molecular Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India.

The slow kinetics of N2 adsorption, splitting of the strong N≡N bond are the challenges for the electrocatalytic nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) process. In the electrocatalytic NRR process, the fast reaction kinetics of hydrogen evolution reaction is the greatest obstacle. To solve these challenges, the search for various types of catalysts is on a roll. Also, identifying active sites responsible for the origin of catalytic activity in transition metal phthalocyanine is difficult due to its complex structure. Herein, density functional theory (DFT) has been applied to identify the probable active sites of nickel phthalocyanine (NiPc) in NRR as well as the origin of catalytic activity, which is associated with d band centre and density of states (DOS) of Ni in NiPc. Accordingly, the NiPc nanorods (NRs) were synthesised by the solvothermal method on a large scale and the chemically prepared NiPc NRs exhibit the NH3 yield rate of about 85 μg h-1mgcat-1.

In 2019, the global production capacity of ammonia was 235 million metric tons which will increase to 290 million metric tons by 2030. This emphasis on ammonia is due to its application in broad and diverse fields, such as fertilisers, textiles, pharmaceutical, and carbon-free energy carriers. The Haber-Bosch process is used to synthesise ammonia (NH3) from N2 and H2 using Fe based catalyst. However, the process emits carbon dioxide (CO2) (1.5 tons of CO2/tons of NH3 production) and requires high pressure and temperature and consumes around 2% of the global energy supply. Electrocatalytic N2 fixation (N2 + 6H+ + 6e− → 2NH3) showed great potential due to the possible use of atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen derived from water through electrolysis and in mild conditions.

In their future endeavours, Prof Thapa and his research group will design different types of such single-atom catalyst (SAC) considering different metal atoms and their surrounding non-metals. Dr Thapa’s team necessitates addressing the above problem to fill the gap, which could be the energy equation, energy parameter and electronic descriptor, to help them predict the best SAC catalyst in the large catalyst space for eNRR over HER. The solution is much needed through density functional theory to understand the origin and design principle and lower the time for trials by experimentalists in the laboratory. Prof Thapa is working on energy equations that can predict the best catalyst for eNRR over HER. They defined four regions to find the SAC catalyst for eNRR over HER (1) catalyst for NRR with almost nil HER probability (ii) catalyst for NRR with low HER probability (iii) HER over NRR and (iv) NRR is possible but with H poisoning. Overall, the energy parameter and descriptor to find NRR over HER is a fundamental problem, and the database is a platform to be used by experimentalists and is the key idea.

Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1TA00766A.