NOPR Collection:

Pulsating Air Pollinator for Greenhouse Cultivation

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Title: Pulsating Air Pollinator for Greenhouse Cultivation Authors: Mahadik, Akshay Sanjay; Kushwaha, H L; Kumar, Adarsh; Bhowmik, Arpan; Singh, Awani Kumar Abstract: Greenhouses have been accepted worldwide for round-the-year cultivation of quality produce. Greenhouse provides a desired climatic condition for crops but, at the same time, has obstacles for natural pollination. A pollinator was designed on the principle of pulsating air jet for pollination. The pollinator was developed with 3D printed three pulsation units with a provision for varied air pulsation frequency and angular movement to cover the complete flower bed. An operator in the greenhouse alleys can easily move this. The developed pollinator was compared with hand pollination and pollination by a blower in tomato crops. The effects of Airflow rates, Pulsation frequencies of air and Exposure times on pollination efficiency and yield were studied. Experiments were performed in tomato plants cultivated in the greenhouse. The highest pollination efficiency (83.66%) was achieved at 1.99 m3/min airflow rate, 23.50 Hz pulsation frequency and exposure time of 19.40 seconds; Average yield of 19.52 kg was observed at 1.99 m3/min of airflow rate, 22.25 Hz of pulsation frequency and exposure time of 15.78 seconds in flowers of 5 m length sections. The yield was also higher with developed pollinator compared to pollination by a blower (36.6%) and controlled plot (95.7%). Page(s): 477-485

Application of Continuous Electrocoagulation Process for Distillery Wastewater Treatment

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Title: Application of Continuous Electrocoagulation Process for Distillery Wastewater Treatment Authors: Srivastava, Ashima; Srivastava, Kirti; Singh, Pratibha Abstract: The present study deals with the treatment of distillery wastewater by continuous electrocoagulation (CEC) method utilizing iron (Fe) as an electrode material. Impacts of flow rates (L/h) and retention time (τ) were investigated on reduction of different physicochemical parameters (TS, colour, COD). COD reduction of 80.10% and 83.1%; and color reduction of 83.2% and 91.5%, separately was accomplished at retention time of 2 and 4h. In addition to this, after 200 minutes electrolysis time (ET), 71% of TS in wastewater was diminished at flow rate of 1 L/h. SEC was found to be from 14.1 to 11.6 kWh/kg COD eliminated with change in flow rate from 3 to 1 L/h at 160 minutes ET. Dissolution of electrodes was likewise explored with an alteration of flow rates. Page(s): 486-490

Determination of EC50 of Cd and Evaluation of Growth and Biochemical Response of Palak Plants (Beta Vulgaris) to Different Cd Treatments

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Title: Determination of EC50 of Cd and Evaluation of Growth and Biochemical Response of Palak Plants (Beta Vulgaris) to Different Cd Treatments Authors: Yadav, Garima; Tiwari, Supriya Abstract: This study was designed to evaluate the growth, biochemical response and Cd accumulation pattern of Palak (Beta vulgaris), variety of All green H1 plants for a range of Cd treatments [control (0), 10 mg/L, 20 mg/L, 30 mg/L, 40 mg/L, 50 mg/L) at two sampling stages, 25 days after germination (25 DAG) and 50 DAG. The present research also quantified the EC50 value of Cd for 50% biomass inhibition in palak plants. Increasing Cd concentration had pessimistic effects on growth and biomass. Plant height, biomass, total leaf area and yield decreased significantly on increasing Cd treatment at the two sampling stages (p<0.05). EC50 for biomass reduction was found to be 27.42 mg/L. Total phenols, thiols and MDA content elevated on increasing Cd concentration. Photosynthetic pigments, chlorophyll a and b reduced significantly by 50.81% and 48.88%, respectively at highest 50 mg/L Cd treatment. A significant interaction (p<0.05) of Cd treatment × plant age was found on Cd content analysis at the two sampling stages, Cd content increased with increasing treatment duration. Page(s): 491-498

A Comparative Performance Evaluation of a Set of Swarm Intelligence based Optimization Algorithms for Economic Operation with FACTS Devices in Power Systems

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Title: A Comparative Performance Evaluation of a Set of Swarm Intelligence based Optimization Algorithms for Economic Operation with FACTS Devices in Power Systems Authors: Gupta, Vikash Kumar; Mishra, Sudhansu Kumar Abstract: In this article an effective Reactive Power Management (RPM) method using a Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) has been proposed, which minimizes the loss of energy, improves the power transfer capacity and reduces the overall cost of transmission network lines. The position of FACTS was optimized by two recently proposed heuristic optimization techniques, i.e., Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) and Teaching Learning Based Optimization (TLBO). It is observed that installing the FACTS in this optimal position improves the voltage profile at minimum installation cost. The overall effectiveness of the proposed approaches were examined by implementing it on a IEEE 30-bus network. Page(s): 499-507