Chanakya Karra admitted to PhD at Purdue University, USA
Once you are a part of SRM University-AP, we ensure that your future is secured! With the guidance of Dr Sujith Kalluri, Assistant Professor, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Mr Chanakya wends his way to Purdue University, USA, a world-renowned research university, for doing his PhD. He secured admission with a full tuition fee waiver and teaching assistantship. Chanakya Karra spent his two years DST-SERB JRF position at SRM AP and has made remarkable contributions to SRM-Amararaja Centre for Energy Storage Devices.
DST-SERB JRF position helped Chanakya resume his research career, which had a pause for over a year. “It fills me with immense joy to see the SRM-Amararaja Centre for Energy Storage Devices shape up with every possible equipment to conduct research on batteries. Kudos to the management and the efforts of the faculty associated with the centre,” says Mr Chanakya. He further mentioned that the research work conducted at SRM-Amara Raja Centre enabled him to write over three papers that catapulted his chances of admission.
“I would urge the students to make the best use of the opportunities available at SRM-AP and discuss their plans with the faculty. I am sure new avenues will open with the mentoring of world-class faculty at SRM”, says Mr Chanakya to the junior batches of students aspiring for a research career.
Mr Chanakya expressed his gratitude to the faculty members associated with Amararaja Centre for Energy Storage Devices- Dr Pardha Saradhi Maram, Associate Professor, Chemistry, Dr Surfarazhussain S Halkarni, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Dr Laxmi Narayana Patro, Assistant Professor, Physics, and others.
- Published in Chemistry-news, Departmental News, ECE NEWS, Mechanical Engineering NEWS, News, Physics News
Highly efficient catalysts of Ruthenium clusters on Fe3O4/MWCNTs for hydrogen evolution reaction
“Highly Efficient Catalysts of Ruthenium Clusters on Fe3O4/MWCNTs for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction” is the latest paper published by Prof Ranjit Thapa, Professor of Physics at SRM university-AP and his PhD scholar, Mr Samadhan Kapse, in ‘New Journal of Chemistry’ having an Impact Factor of 3.591.
In this work, the chemical co-precipitation technique is adopted to produce Fe3O4 nanoparticles under an inert atmosphere and was utilized for HER studies. The Ru nanoparticles were profitably deposited over Fe3O4/MWCNTs GC electrode using electrochemical deposition technique. The superior HER activity was achieved on Ru/Fe3O4/MWCNTs in 0.1 M H2SO4 aqueous media. We have demonstrated that the synthesized electrocatalyst offers a low overpotential of 101 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm-2 towards the hydrogen evolution reaction. It displays long-term durability, exceptional cyclic stability even after 1000 cycles. DFT calculations imply that the availability of both octahedral and tetrahedral sites in Ru/Fe3O4/MWCNTs with low overpotential is more efficient towards HER. It is emphasized that a low percentage of ruthenium in the prepared catalyst can be substituted as a promising HER catalyst for sustainable energy technologies.
Abstract of the paper
Producing molecular hydrogen (H2) using water provides a sustainable approach for developing clean energy technologies. Herein, we report highly active ruthenium clusters (Ru) supported on iron oxide (Ru/Fe3O4) and Fe3O4/multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Ru/Fe3O4/MWCNTs) by simple electrochemical deposition in a neutral aqueous medium. The supported catalyst exhibits good hydrogen evolution reaction activity (HER) in an acidic environment. Cyclic voltammograms (CV) in potassium ferrocyanide (K4[Fe(CN)6]) confirm MWCNTs enhance the electron transfer process by decreasing the redox formal potential. The overpotential of Ru/Fe3O4/MWCNTs and Ru/Fe3O4 electrocatalysts versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) was found to be 101 mV and 306 mV to reach a current density of 10 mA cm-2 . As prepared, the catalyst displays good stability and retain its HER activity even after 1000 cycles. Further, the stability of Ru/Fe3O4/MWCNTs was studied using chronopotentiometric (CP) technique for 12 hrs and found negligible loss in the catalytic activity towards HER. To explore the role of Ru and underneath MWCNTs to improve the catalytic performance of Fe3O4, density functional theory (DFT) calculations were carried out. DFT calculations indicate the octahedral site of Ru/Fe3O4 favours HER with low overpotential. However, Ru/Fe3O4/MWCNTs is more efficient towards HER could be due to the availability of both octahedral and tetrahedral catalytic sites.
Social implications of the research
Renewable energy generation is of greater importance in the present circumstances. This is caused by the depletion of non-renewable energy sources like fossil fuels and other hydrocarbon deposits and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Hydrogen has gained considerable interest as an energy storage and energy carrier because of its high energy density (146kJ/g). Furthermore, its lightweight, profusion nature and the release of water during its combustion eliminate environmental pollution and thus contribute to defeating the global energy crisis. Also, hydrogen is an important and ideal energy source to develop fuel cells. A number of methods have been explored to generate molecular hydrogen. Among them, water electrolysis is a promising technology for generating high-purity hydrogen from water. An excellent electrocatalyst is obligatory to liberate hydrogen gas effectively from water. A higher HER activity is known to be obtained from platinum (Pt) and Pt-based catalysts. Given its high cost and low surplus, it limits expansion to the industrial scale. Over the few past decades, lots of efforts have been made by many research teams to find out alternative catalysts to substitute Pt electrodes.
The paper is published in collaboration with Shwetha Kolathur Ramachandra, Doddahalli Hanumantharayudu Nagaraju, and Shivanna Marappa; School of Applied Sciences, REVA University, Bangalore-560064, Karnataka, India. According to the research group, the density functional theory can boost the searching process of highly promising electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reactions in renewable energy generation.
- Published in Departmental News, News, Physics News, Research News
Students pursuing semester abroad topped SF Hacks
SRM University-AP is indeed proud of its young and intelligent minds who continue to bring honour and glory to the institution from across the globe. Pulkit Jasti and Tankala Yuvaraj, two of our students from the Department of Computer Science Engineering currently pursuing Semester Abroad Programme at the University of California, Berkeley have won first prize in the prestigious SF Hacks conducted by San Francisco State University, USA, and bagged a total of $950 ($600 for 1st Prize, $250 for Best UI/UX Design, and $100 for Best AIML Hack).
The world has always been ruled and sustained by ideas. Innovating and executing the unthinkable are what helped us tide over the unprecedented hardships the pandemic entailed. SF Hacks 2022, San Francisco’s largest collegiate hackathon was conceived to hatch some striking ideas under the tracks: inclusivity, mental health, sustainability, and machine learning to put the latest technologies to use in the fittest way possible to render solutions to the unending maladies of corona and climate change.
Pulkit Jasti and Tankala Yuvaraj have tread out of the way to introduce an AI-based classroom system that monitors the mental-well being of the students. It is an unfortunate fact that our classrooms have often overlooked the emotional and mental well-being of the students. The transition to virtual mode has made the scenario even worse. Researches state that the depression rates in students between ages 10-18 have increased by 72% since the pandemic.
According to Pulkit and Yuvaraj, this incredible innovation monitors various parameters like facial expressions, voice, attentiveness of a student during the class and generates a meta score that gives an overall idea about the mental well-being of the student. Based on this score, the school counsellors will be notified and then the student can have a one on one therapy session with the counsellor. This system can help identify signs of depression at early stages which makes classroom a safe learning environment for students.
They were determined to come up with an effective solution to redefine the conventional classroom setup and make learning a wholesome experience. “After selecting a problem and drafting the base of the project, we were assured that it could create a positive impact for students during these unprecedented times of the Covid-19 outbreak”, they said.
“During the hackathon, we ran into a lot of technical issues and roadblocks but were able to overcome them and submit our final prototype. To be a part of such a huge event where there were around 1000+ participants from over 26 countries was indeed a remarkable learning experience”, they expressed their feeling of contentment. “We can never thank enough our faculty at SRM for their enormous support throughout our journey at the University of California Berkeley” they added.
- Published in CSE NEWS, Departmental News, News, Students Achievements
Paper presentation in International Conference on Innovations in Information Technology
Mr Mudigonda Himansh, a 3rd-year BTech-CSE student, has presented a research paper in the IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Information Technology-2022 organised by IIIT Kottayam, Kerala India, in Feb-2022. The paper will be published in IEEE Xplore (Scopus indexed). Dr V M Manikandan, Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at SRM University-AP, is the co-author of the presented paper titled “A Statistical Study and Analysis to Identify the Importance of Open-source Software”.
Open-source software has picked up pace in the past decade with support from multinational conglomerates and huge open-source communities. We hear a lot about the success of many open-source projects, but we fail to understand how many do not make it. In this paper, Mr Himansh and Dr Manikandan understand the dynamics behind open-source software. They start with the need for open-source alternatives. Then look at a few concerns open-source software developers and maintainers face. Next, we would understand the various requirements of open-source software. Later, we would touch upon the different attributes that affect the selection of open-source software and the decisions to make while building general-purpose, open-source software. Then we would analyse the 5-determinants of open-source software success. Finally, we would look at the data collected from 482 data points from 24 countries and then analyse the data by forming graphs and charts.
This research provides the required knowledge to the open-source and non-open source software developers before-during-after development and production of the software or project. “Our future work is focused on the applications and predicting the scalability of large-scale OSS with machine learning,” says Dr Manikandan.
- Published in CSE NEWS, Departmental News, News, Research News