M.Tech. SEMESTER III-

1531 MATERIALS FOR ENERGY APPLICATIONS

Unit-1: Materials for hydro power generation: Introduction: India’ vast potential of hydro power; problem of high silt content of Himalayan rivers and its associated erosion damage, and high velocity streaming water causing cavitation. Size and shape of particles, hardness of particles and its concentration in water. Chemical composition, microstructure, mechanical properties like hardness, ductility, tensile strength, work-hardening rate and toughness.

Unit-2: Materials for thermal power generation: Introduction to the constraints that are currently placed on power generation plant in terms of environmental impact and developing of high efficiency, low emission systems. Measures to improve the efficiency of a power plant- Increasing the temperature and the pressure of the steam entering the turbine.

Unit-3: Batteries and Super capacitors for electrochemical energy storage: Batteries – primary and secondary batteries, Lithium, Solid-state and molten solvent batteries; Lead acid batteries; Nickel Cadmium Batteries; Advanced Batteries, Super capacitors for energy storage. Role of carbon nanomaterials as electrodes in batteries and super capacitors.

Unit-4: Materials for energy storage: Synthesis of nanomaterials, top-down and bottom-up approaches, mechanical milling, solgel method, chemical vapour deposition (CVD), Carbon Nano-Tubes (CNT), Carbon Nano-Fibres (CNF), graphene, preparation of graphene. Fabrication of CNTs and CNFs, CNTs and CNFs for hydrogen storage.

Unit-5: Fuel Cells and its applications: Fuel Cells, components of fuel cells, Types of fuel cells, Acid/alkaline fuel cells, polymer electrolyte fuel cell,
phosphoric acid fuel cell, molten carbonate fuel cell, solid oxide fuel cell, Types of solid oxide fuel cells: High temperature, intermediate temperature Single chamber solid oxide fuel cells, Problems with fuel cells, applications of fuel cells, difference between batteries and fuel cells, principle of working of fuel cell, performance characteristics of fuel cells, efficiency of fuel cell, fuel cell stack, description of some commercially available fuel cell stacks, fuel cell cars and buses, overview on research activities.

REFERENCES:

  1. Dieter, G. E., “Mechanical Metallurgy”, 3rd Ed., 1988,McGraw Hill,.
  2. Reed-Hill, R.E. and Abbaschian, R., “Physical Metallurgy Principles”, 1992, The PWS-KENT Series in Engg.
  3. Hutchings, I.M. “Tribology – Friction and Wear of Engineering Materials”, 1992, Edward Arnold Publications Ltd.
  4. Linden D. and Reddy Thomas B., “Handbook of Batteries”, 2001, McGraw Hill Publications
  5. Larminie and A. Dicks, Fuel Cell Systems Explained, 2nd Edition, Wiley (2003)
  6. Xianguo Li, Principles of Fuel Cells, Taylor and Francis (2005)
  7. S. Srinivasan, Fuel Cells: From Fundamentals to Applications, Springer (2006)
  8. O’Hayre, S. W. Cha, W. Colella and F. B. Prinz, Fuel Cell Fundamentals, Wiley (2005)
  9. A. J. Bard and L. R. Faulkner, Electrochemical Methods: Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd Edition, Wiley, 2000
  10. A. Faghri and Y. Zhang, Transport Phenomena in Multiphase Systems, Elsevier 2006