The project focusses on design, optimization and control of a renewable power production system. The system consists of three main components; biogas generation and cleanup, conversion of biogas into bio-hydrogen and lastly, converting this hydrogen into electricity using a fuel cell. These three components are strongly coupled in terms of material recycle and energy integration. The project objectives will be to:

Co-supervisor: Sujit S Jogwar

The work will look at approaches which can harness foundational models to help with piping and instrumentation diagram creation. This is part of an ongoing activity with invovlement of a design engineering company. Beyond using foundational existing models, the work will also explore ways to efficiently update (finetune) existing models using documents/data from the engineering company or otherwise available in literature. Currently there are no such available tools. 

Breast cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality worldwide despite significant advances in diagnosis and treatment. A major challenge in the development of effective therapeutics is the lack of preclinical models that accurately recapitulate the complex tumour microenvironment. Conventional two-dimensional (2D) cell culture systems fail to reproduce the three-dimensional architecture, extracellular matrix interactions, mechanical cues, and dynamic biochemical gradients that influence tumour progression and drug response.

The petroleum industry is significantly challenged by clay swelling in subterranean formations, which occurs when hydrophilic clays absorb water, expanding in size and reducing the permeability of oil- bearing reservoirs. This phenomenon results in decreased oil recovery efficiency, increased production costs, and the potential for severe operational disruptions. Inhibiting clay swelling is therefore critical to improving oil extraction, particularly in shale and other clay-rich formations.

Hydrogen and methane storage is a critical challenge for realizing their potential as a clean energy carrier, especially in mobile and portable applications. Carbon-based porous materials such as activated carbons, graphene derivatives, and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have shown promise in their storage due to their high surface area, lightweight nature, and chemical stability.

The climate change is a reality which is creating extreme weather patterns of heavy rains and droughts which leads to loss of lives. The immediate reason is formation or absence of clouds in these events and hence understanding their formation is necessary. In this project, the focus is to probe early stages of formation of clouds in atmosphere by water condensation. Effects of various parameters would be explored.

Energy demand is increasing worldwide because of which extraction of crude-oil from existing matured oil-field is becoming more important. In mature oil fields, the crude-oil is strongly adhered to the rock surface. To remove this oil, additional chemicals needs to be supplied. In this project, we would use molecular simulations approach to probe the detachment of crude oil from rock surfaces using injecting fluids. This computational insight allows for the design of more efficient displacement fluids, bridging the gap between theoretical chemistry and field-scale production.

The project aims at developing a comprehensive model, currently lacking in the literature, for simultaneous electroporation and electrodeformation in vesicles and excitable (such as Neurons and Cardiomyotcytes) and non-excitable nucleate and anucleate cells, relevant in electroporation for cancer treatment.  On the other spectrum of soft matter, the code will also be extended to droplet electrohydrodynamics relevant in crude oil refining. The simulatino platform will be in-house Boundary Integral code, as well as COMSOL Multiphysics and other open source softwares.

We have already developed a working prototype for killing and removal of
E. coli from water. It is based on our synthesized nanocomposite, made
of Ag-Cu nanoparticle impregnated on granular activated carbon and
packed into a filter column, which is driven by gravity-head of the water