Plappally, Anand K

2024, Himanchal Bhardwaj, Anugya Shukla, Aswathy Puthukkulam, Venkata Ravibabu Mandla, Plappally, Anand K

Unplanned urbanization and industrialization have become threats to the sustainability of services in the cities of India. This article explores the relationship between land use spatial pattern, vegetation cover, water, and varying configurations of industrial land use in Kota City, Rajasthan, India, from the year 1990 to 2020. The study utilizes remote sensed Landsat data for analyzing the spatial-temporal dynamics of the landscape. A supervised classification approach is adopted to classify three decadal data. Spatial metrics are utilized to quantify the spatial configuration of the landscape. It was observed that a significant urban expansion has occurred in the city mainly in the northwestern direction on fertile lands, with a severe loss of traditional water bodies within the city. Lately, the rocky southern landscape of Kota city has been used for performing agriculture.

2019-07-01, Nighojkar, Amrita Kaurwar, Vijay, Ankisha, Kumavat, Ajay, Gupta, Sandeep, Satankar, Raj Kumar, Plappally, Anand K

This paper elaborates manufacture and performance analysis of new clay ceramic (CC) water filtration materials. The CC is manufactured from clay and sawdust mix. Waste marble powder and machined iron fines are used as additives to the mix for manufacturing the new modified materials. An equal volume of clay and sawdust were used to manufacture the control CC. Another ceramic, marble clay ceramic (MCC), was manufactured with distinct volume fractions of clay, sawdust, and marble (40:40:10). Third ceramic, ferrous clay ceramic (FCC), was manufactured from an equal volume of clay and sawdust and five percent by volume of iron fines. FCC showcased better arsenic (As (V)) contaminant removal from water at acidic pH while MCC showcased best As (V) removal at around pH of 8. Average flexural strength of MCC was comparatively better than FCC and CC. The modified materials showcased similar percolation rates at par with control CC. MCC showcased comparatively better E. coli removal capabilities than FCC and CC. Only limited volumetric addition of marble powder and iron fines were found to positively affect compressive strength. The results demonstrate new low-cost ways of modifying strength and specific water treatment characteristics of CC using waste materials from local marble-processing and iron-machining industries.

2017-01-01, Kaurwar, Amrita, Satankar, Raj, Gupta, Sandeep, Aravind, Usha K., Kothari, Kuldeep, Soboyejo, Alfred, Plappally, Anand K

Off-white water pots have had sustained traditional acceptance for a long period of time in Jodhpur compared to red colored water pots imported from the neighboring Gujarat state. Both types of pots hold 20 liters of potable water. The fluorescence spectroscopy reveals dominance of silica, alumina and iron oxide in red pots from Gujarat whereas off-white pots from Rajasthan also have a slight excess of CaO and MgO. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy reveals a firing temperature of 800 °C for off-white pots, which is comparatively less than that for red pots. A lower amount of Fe2O3 and higher MgO in off-white compared to red water pots is responsible for the color differentiation. Off-white pots show a better degree of cooling compared to red pots. Better resistance to load was observed in off-white pots compared to red pots. This study may imply influence of hidden techno-functional aspects towards sustainability of off-white pots in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.

2014-01-01, Jain, Garima, Plappally, Anand K, Raman, Shanmuganathan

Traditionally, High Dynamic Range (HDR) images are created by combining photographs taken at different exposure times. This technique has the overhead to capture more than single image of the scene while changing the exposure value. The proposed approach, InternetHDR, aims at creating an HDR image without the need of explicitly taking differently exposed images. This novel approach uses a single Low Dynamic Range (LDR) image as input to create an HDR image by combining information from visually similar images mined from the internet sites using Google image search. The results show that visually pleasing HDR images can be created using a single LDR image and additional information from the visually similar images mined from the internet. © 2014 IEEE.

2024, Sunil Duhan, Sachin Jalwal, Himanchal, Plappally, Anand K

G-filter is a common household ceramic water filter manufactured from kaolinite sawdust. Kaolinite and sawdust wet mixtures are press-formed to produce the frustum shape; air-dried and sintered to manufacture the G-filter. The sawdust used is a mixture of dissimilar wood waste readily available at carpentry workshops. In this article, Cassia fistula pods sawdust is used instead of the sawdust mixture. This new filter is named Cassia Fistula Modified (CFM) G-filter. Thermogravimetric and SEM analysis were performed to characterize and compare the CFM and regular G-filter variants. The CFM G-filter has a double modal mass reduction compared to the G-filter manufactured with sawdust as raw material. Comparative flow analysis revealed a ten-fold increase in filtration rate in CFM-based G-filters compared to regular G-filters. Therefore, CFM-modified G-filters can become a potential solution for fluoride removal from drinking water sources. The CFM greenware mixture is modified with ferric chloride and alumina nanoparticles to produce a Novel Clay Ceramic (NVC) water filter. The control experiments for NVC water filters were conducted on a G-filter modified in similar manner with FeCl3 and Al2O3 nanoparticles. Ion-selective elective test for NVC filter achieved ~33% and ~53.33% fluoride removal in the first and the second run, respectively. Similarly, ion chromatography revealed 37.66% and 46.97% fluoride removal in the first run and the second run, respectively. The regular G-filter did not showcase any specific removal whatsoever compared to the NVC. The implication of this work is the use of local plant materials as point-of-use solutions for drinking water problems.

2013-01-01, Wei, Xiaohua, Wang, Xiugui, Dong, Bing, Li, Xinjian, Plappally, Anand K, Mao, Zhi, Brown, Larry C.

The experimental farmland-channel-wetland systems (FCWS) in Guilin, China have been recently designed based on wetland water recycling systems in Midwest USA. The present article develops a methodology for simplifying the prediction of residence time as a function of the flow rate and physical shape of these contaminant removal systems. A series of two-dimensional simulation studies on surface flow through FCWS wetland of different shapes are performed. Parameters influencing hydraulic characteristics such as empirical values of inlet and outlet flow conditions, and wetland shapes are utilized as inputs to the study. Roughness coefficient was assumed to be constant across the different wetland designs discussed in this article. The mean velocity values within the wetland decreases with increase in ratio of variant inlet widths and wetland inflow rates. The results from the simulation are used as inputs for performing a multivariate multiparameter regression algorithm. This framework models the residence time within the wetland independently as a function of shape, mass inflow, and inlet geometry. This simplified model can be used with ease to evaluate existing as well as new wetland system designs for potential improvement in its function of desalting and filtering waters. © 2013 Desalination Publications. All rights reserved.

2015-04-30, Adil, Ammar, Badarla, Venkataramana, Plappally, Anand K, Bhandari, Ravi, Sankhla, Poonam Chand

Today, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is ubiquitous. It has touched almost all spheres concerning human survival, growth and development. Agriculture is no exception to it. This paper presents the research initiatives towards improving irrigation efficiency through affordable ICT solutions. It presents experimental results of studies related to improving irrigation efficiency in Semi arid zones in India, using commercially available ICT solutions. It compares between simple microirrigation and microirrigation with ICT (irrigation on demand) and establishes that by using ICT in agriculture, we can increase the irrigation efficiencies by a considerable amount. The paper also presents the development of indigenous wireless sensor node and gateway made from open source hardware and software components. The efforts in this regard show, while maintaining comparable performance, a significant reduction in the cost of wireless sensor devices, when compared to commercially available wireless sensor devices, is achieved.

2024, Meraj Ahmad, Pankaj Jakhar, S. Sunitha, Plappally, Anand K

G-Filters can contribute to the circular economy by promoting sustainable water management practices. G-Filters provide gravity based filtration and an affordable clay ceramic solution for household water treatment in India. These filters are made from clayey soils with organic pore forming material. As a result, ceramic water filters (CWF) reduce the need for expensive water treatment facilities and the associated energy and resource consumption. G-Filters can be easily cleaned and reused, reducing the amount of waste generated by single-use water filters. They can also be reused a porous irrigation vessels (PIV) for desalting soils. This contributes to the circular economy by promoting resource efficiency and minimizing waste. Furthermore, G-Filters can also help promote local economic development by using locally-sourced materials and manufacturing processes, and creating job opportunities for local communities. By incorporating G-Filters into water management practices, we can move towards a more sustainable and circular water economy.

2013-07-01, Yakub, Ismaiel, Plappally, Anand K, Leftwich, Megan, Malatesta, Karen, Friedman, Katie C., Obwoya, Sam, Nyongesa, Francis, Maiga, Amadou H., Soboyejo, Alfred B.O., Logothetis, Stefanos, Soboyejo, Wole

This paper presents the results of an experimental study of the effects of porosity on the flow rate and Escherichia coli (E. coli) filtration characteristics of porous ceramic water filters (CWFs) prepared without a coating of silver. Clay-based CWFs were fabricated by sintering composites of redart clay and fine woodchips (sawdust) in three different proportions by volume, viz: 50:50, 65:35, and 75:25. Sintering the greenware below 1,000 C produced reddish colored pot of three different degrees of porosity and micro-and nanoscale pores, which are the key to efficient filtration. The porosities and pore size distribution frequencies of the sintered clay ceramics were characterized using mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP). The porosity of the CWFs ranged from ∼36% to ∼47% and increased with increasing sawdust content in a linear fashion, and the pore size varied from ∼10 nm to ∼100 μm. The volume flow rates of water through the CWFs were investigated by measuring the cumulative amount of water flow as a function of time. The flow rate was found to increase with increasing porosity of the CWFs. The effective intrinsic permeabilities of the CWFs were then obtained from Darcy fits to the flow rate data. These were compared with values obtained using the Katz-Thompson method. Both approaches gave comparable results of permeability between ∼1 millidarcy to ∼50 millidarcy. The tortuosity of the CWFs was found from Hager's equation to range from ∼10 to ∼60. In general, while the permeability of the CWFs decreased with increasing clay content, tortuosity increased with increasing clay content. The CWFs removed E. coli from aqueous suspension very efficiently with average log reduction values between 5.7-6.4. The implications and limitations of the results are discussed for the effective filtration of water in the developing world. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

2017-06-01, Sharma, Pragati R., Soni, Vineet Kumar, Pandey, Shubham, Choudhary, Ganpat, Plappally, Anand K, Sharma, Rakesh Kumar

The current study involves a simple hydrazine based colorimetric chemo-sensor for selective determination of various anions. The anion-binding ability of the ligand with various anions via polar-non polar interactions and hydrogen bonding has been examined. The sensor displayed significant UV-vis enhancement response to anions such as fluoride, acetate, hydroxide, cyanide and hydrogen sulphate, with respect to concentration and time. The rate constants (K) and binding constants, Ka, for these anions have been measured by using Benesi-Hildebrand equation. A time dependent NMR study revealed stronger interaction for cyanide and fluoride ions among competing anions.