http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/2 2026-06-02T22:06:42Z 2026-06-02T22:06:42Z Awasthi, Aditi http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/21084 2026-05-25T07:41:06Z 2021-06-01T00:00:00Z

Title: BIOPROCESS DEVELOPMENT FOR UTILIZATION OF LIGNOCELLULOSIC BIOMASS FOR FIBRE PRODUCTION Authors: Awasthi, Aditi Abstract: recent decades, the ligno-cellulosic biomass has emerged as a renewable resource to meet the demands of improving human living standards. Lignocellulosic biomass, driven from the agricultural industry, is an excellent resource of carbohydrates (hemicellulose and cellulose) and can be utilized to produce high-demand products such as pure cellulose, bio-ethanol, xylitol, etc. The application of lignocellulosic biomass for bioenergy production is a much-known phenomenon nowadays. Therefore a different approach has been applied to convert lignocellulosic biomass into fibres in this project. This approach uses acid hydrolysis for the extraction of the cellulosic portion from lignocellulosic biomass and then converts the acid-free cellulose to fibres using the electrospinning technique. The cellulose-rich hydrolysate is made acid-free using the electrodialysis technique.

2021-06-01T00:00:00Z Kachroo, Himanshu http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/21083 2026-05-25T07:40:50Z 2021-06-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Bio-energy Production and Biological Wastewater Treatment using Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) Authors: Kachroo, Himanshu Abstract: Monumental efforts have been made to find a convincing solution to energy tension by considering renewable energies as the most important and least damaging. Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is an attractive green technology to deal with the current and forthcoming energy crisis and environmental issues. This technology employs microbial communities as biocatalysts to convert chemical energy from organic substrates to electrical energy. A variety of feedstock such as acetate, glucose, municipal wastewater, agricultural wastewater, etc. can be utilized in this reactor system. MFCs show marvelous performance in the treatment of wastewater. In this consideration, the investigation of MFCs incorporated with anaerobic mixed cultures is of certain interest for this research due to its competency to generate renewable biological energy along with wastewater treatment. To enhance the performance of the reactor, a systematic optimization of crucial operational process parameters such as temperature, pH, and mediator concentration was carried out. The reactor optimization was carried out via the Design of Experiments (DOE) approach using MiniTab software to perform Taguchi Analysis and ANOVA. The performance of the batch reactor was optimal with the operating conditions of temperature 300C, pH 7, and mediator concentration 400μM. The transfer of electrons from microorganisms to the anode electrode is a prominent constraint for the elevation of the voltage output from MFCs. In this concern, the introduction of an electron mediator in the MFC reactor to facilitate electron transfer was a must for encouraging the efficiency of the reactor. Methylene blue was used as an effective redox mediator in this study. The data obtained on the energy generation and pollution removal were at par with the statistical predictions of Taguchi Design of Experiments. It was introspected that a fraction of the mediator concentration was degraded resulting in mediator color removal. MFC fed with 400μM methylene blue concentration generated a maximum voltage of 319mV and the highest % removal of COD of 92.3%. In addition to operating process parameters and redox mediators, the performance of MFC has also been affected by electrode materials. The electrode should possess high stability, low toxicity, conductivity, low over potential, and high surface area to volume ratio. So, different materials like graphite, copper, and stainless steel were employed in these reactors to further get a comparative analysis on reactor performance. The results showed that batch MFC reactor employed with stainless steel electrode represented the highest performance in terms of bio-electricity production and % removal of COD i.e. 371mV and 93.7%.

2021-06-01T00:00:00Z Kalita, Ishan Jyoti http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/21082 2026-05-25T07:40:40Z 2021-06-01T00:00:00Z

Title: MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF JET DEVELOPMENT AND DROPLET DISPERSION DURING SNEEZING: A REVIEW Authors: Kalita, Ishan Jyoti Abstract: SARS (2003), Swine Flu (2009), Covid-19 are some of the recent global outbreak that spread mainly by airborne respiratory droplets. Sneezing is one of potential sources of transmission of respiratory diseases. It is the need of the hour to study the of human sneeze behaviour. In previous years, several numerical studies were conducted using CFD to foresee the hydrodynamics of particles transmission and penetration during human-forced respiratory activities. Also various surveys were conducted on human sneeze droplet distribution and the effect of relative humidity, inlet velocities on sneeze droplet dispersion in recent years. This report is a review of various methods used by previous studies in the field of human sneezing profile. Literature review on numerical studies on human sneeze jet development and droplet dispersion is done. For better pandemic control caused by airborne transmission of pathogen carrying microbes more detailed study should be performed.

2021-06-01T00:00:00Z Das, Mridul http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/21081 2026-05-25T07:40:30Z 2021-06-01T00:00:00Z

Title: MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF CELLULASE ENZYME PRODUCTION IN A SOLID STATE FERMENTATION BIOREACTOR AND IT’S EFFECT ON PRETREATMENT Authors: Das, Mridul Abstract: Solid-state fermentation (SSF) is the process which involves microbial growth in limited presence of water using a solid substrate. Generally funguses are the preferred organisms for this as it resembles the natural habitat of the organisms. Recent demand for large quantities of enzymes and other biologically active secondary metabolites has given a lime light to the technology of solid state Cellulase is the third largest industrial enzyme after Amylase and Proteases, which covers almost 20% of the total enzyme market. Cellulase hydrolyzes β-1,4 glycosidic linkage in cellulose. It comprises endoglucanase, exoglucanase, and β- glucosidase. Cellulases are produced generally by submerged fermentation using genetically modified organisms. But large-scale production of cellulase has not been exploited much because of lack of proper bioreactor facility with control system. Mathematical modeling is a powerful device for the designing, scaling-up and controlling of bioreactors. A mathematical model plays a great role in summarizing our knowledge about the proper operation and functioning of a reactor system summarizes our knowledge about how a system operates. In this thesis, sorghum was pretreated with alkali and steam explosion to check its effect on the increase in activity. Pretreatment here was not successful, but the steam explosion gave some good results at 60 min. Even though activity increased in the steam explosion, but for large scale reactor run it may not be feasible because of biomass loss and degradation of sugars into inhibitory compounds during pretreatment. That’s why we have gone for untreated biomass for SSF and also estimated the kinetic and transport parameters. A new packed bed SSF bioreactor with intermittent mixing was set up.. For modeling, existing equation from the literature Ranjbar et al., (2019), have been used. Using logistic growth model kinetic parameters µm and Xm have been calculated. Measurement of cell biomass is a crucial factor in SSF as the filamentous fungi remains attached to the solid biomass and it becomes difficult to separate them. So, the alternate method of biomass estimation which involves respiratory data gives information regarding the real time monitoring of microbial biomass production. In our system,CO2 production rate(CPR) and oxygen uptake rate(OUR) has been performed in the solid state fermentation and those data has been fitted using existing design equation mathematical modeling. Model parameter were taken from literature and fitted in the heat transfer design equation, along with the values of other parameters and operating variables, which gave prediction of rate of change of water in bed and temperature change with respect to bed height, radius in different time interval during the fermentation process. These equations can be used for other organisms too and can be used for scaling up in future.

2021-06-01T00:00:00Z