Excellent idea!
[h=1]This group uses soot from gensets to leave its mark[/h]TNN | Oct 6, 2016, 06.45 AM IST
NEW DELHI: When Arpit Dhupar and his friends floated an idea to reduce toxic diesel emissions in the capital, it appeared to be plain "idiotic" to their mentors. The idea hit them last year when they were drinking sugarcane juice at a roadside joint where the cane crusher was running on a diesel generator but its emissions couldn't be seen. The juice vendor had attached an exhaust pipe to divert the emissions to a wall instead. "We noticed that the wall had turned black from the diesel soot and thought whether we can use this carbon? If it can colour the wall black, it can surely be utilised as paint. But the idea was thought to be impractical," said Arpit, co-founder of Chakr.
Arpit, however, made up his mind to refine the idea.In January this year, the team of innovators registered its company, Chakr, which works mainly on extracting ink from diesel exhausts and is now exploring other applications where captured carbon can be used. It built several container designs that could catch soot directly from genset exhausts.
"Then we put them to tests to see how much carbon could actually be captured without affecting the functioning of the genset.The carbon is dissolved in a solution to make the ink," Arpit added.
Each genset (that runs for eight hours a day) can produce 34 litres of ink per month. Several tests had to be run to assess its toxicity and fastness. "The results showed that the carbon ink is fast and better than many others in the market.We won a couple of grants too, which helped us pilot the idea in seven gensets," Arpit said.
The team, as of now, is extracting carbon only from gensets used to run mobile towers and industries."Mobile towers continue to depend on polluting diesel gensets. A Teri study revealed that 16% of PM 2.5 (respirable pollution particles) emissions are from diesel gensets in the city .Our idea was to address this problem," Arpit added. As of now, the ink from the seven pilot projects of Chakr is being used by some T-shirt manufacturers. Each litre of diesel exhaust ink can be used to print 30-40 T-shirts. The team members think it could also be used to print books in the long run.
"We are only using it for screen-printing as of now and it has worked very well. Some more tests have to be run to see how it can be used for paper or books," said Arpit.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ts-to-leave-its-mark/articleshow/54707340.cms
[h=1]This group uses soot from gensets to leave its mark[/h]TNN | Oct 6, 2016, 06.45 AM IST
NEW DELHI: When Arpit Dhupar and his friends floated an idea to reduce toxic diesel emissions in the capital, it appeared to be plain "idiotic" to their mentors. The idea hit them last year when they were drinking sugarcane juice at a roadside joint where the cane crusher was running on a diesel generator but its emissions couldn't be seen. The juice vendor had attached an exhaust pipe to divert the emissions to a wall instead. "We noticed that the wall had turned black from the diesel soot and thought whether we can use this carbon? If it can colour the wall black, it can surely be utilised as paint. But the idea was thought to be impractical," said Arpit, co-founder of Chakr.
Arpit, however, made up his mind to refine the idea.In January this year, the team of innovators registered its company, Chakr, which works mainly on extracting ink from diesel exhausts and is now exploring other applications where captured carbon can be used. It built several container designs that could catch soot directly from genset exhausts.
"Then we put them to tests to see how much carbon could actually be captured without affecting the functioning of the genset.The carbon is dissolved in a solution to make the ink," Arpit added.
Each genset (that runs for eight hours a day) can produce 34 litres of ink per month. Several tests had to be run to assess its toxicity and fastness. "The results showed that the carbon ink is fast and better than many others in the market.We won a couple of grants too, which helped us pilot the idea in seven gensets," Arpit said.
The team, as of now, is extracting carbon only from gensets used to run mobile towers and industries."Mobile towers continue to depend on polluting diesel gensets. A Teri study revealed that 16% of PM 2.5 (respirable pollution particles) emissions are from diesel gensets in the city .Our idea was to address this problem," Arpit added. As of now, the ink from the seven pilot projects of Chakr is being used by some T-shirt manufacturers. Each litre of diesel exhaust ink can be used to print 30-40 T-shirts. The team members think it could also be used to print books in the long run.
"We are only using it for screen-printing as of now and it has worked very well. Some more tests have to be run to see how it can be used for paper or books," said Arpit.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ts-to-leave-its-mark/articleshow/54707340.cms
