Implementation of Clean Coal Technologies to comply with “New Emission Norms” for Thermal Power Plants - Way forward for Southern Region Summary Report of NITI Aayog-DST-NIAS Workshop 17th September 2019 (NIAS/NSE/EEP/U/WR/13/2019)

Coal based Thermal Power Plants (TPP) are the backbone of the power generation utilities in the country. Coal based TPPs constitute to around 56.1% of the total installed capacity and generates around 74.2% of the electricity generated in India. Considering the high pollution and resource impacts, of TPPs the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) notified the Environment Protection (Amendment) Rules (EPAR) on December 5, 2015 with a two-year window for TPPs to meet these standards.  When implemented, these norms are expected to have positive environmental and health benefits by leading to lower pollution levels from TPPs. However, compliance with the new emission norms would require retrofitting existing thermal power plants with various Pollution Control Technologies (PCT) in the form of auxiliary systems to control SO2, NOX and PM emissions. In order to ensure 24x7 supply of electricity, CPCB (in consultation with CEA) finalized the revised timelines for all TPPs to comply with the new emission norms by December 2022. The team at Energy and Environment Programme (EEP) in NIAS, Bangalore interacted with various Power Plant Generation companies (GENCOs) in Southern Region to understand their challenges and way forward with respect to the huge capital investment and schedules for implementation. This team developed and a “Concept Paper” for a workshop with the theme, “Strategies and Action Plans needed for transition to an environment friendly and sustainable Electricity Source mix for the Southern Region”. This Workshop was held at NIAS on 17th September 2019 to enable key stakeholders - Power Plant Owners (Central & Southern States), Pollution Control Equipment Suppliers, Regulators and Policymakers to share their experience and deliberate on the challenges to develop a road map for implementation.  This report presents the gist of each talk by the invited participants, and also consolidates the key findings and recommendations of the Workshop.  This summary report will form the basis for further research as well as for policy advocacy with GOI through NITI Aayog

Implementation of clean coal technologies to comply with "New Emission Norms" for thermal power plants - way forward for the Southern region. Summary Report of NITI Aayog-DST-NIAS Workshop, 17th September 2019

Coal based Thermal Power Plants (TPP) are the backbone of the power generation utilities in the country. Coal based TPPs constitute to around 56.1% of the total installed capacity and generates around 74.2% of the electricity generated in India. Considering the high pollution and resource impacts, of TPPs the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) notified the Environment Protection (Amendment) Rules (EPAR) on December 5, 2015 with a two-year window for TPPs to meet these standards. When implemented, these norms are expected to have positive environmental and health benefits by leading to lower pollution levels from TPPs. However, compliance with the new emission norms would require retrofitting existing thermal power plants with various Pollution Control Technologies (PCT) in the form of auxiliary systems to control SO2, NOX and PM emissions. In order to ensure 24x7 supply of electricity, CPCB (in consultation with CEA) finalized the revised timelines for all TPPs to comply with the new emission norms by December 2022. The team at Energy and Environment Programme (EEP) in NIAS, Bangalore interacted with various Power Plant Generation companies (GENCOs) in Southern Region to understand their challenges and way forward with respect to the huge capital investment and schedules for implementation. This team developed and a “Concept Paper” for a workshop with the theme, “Strategies and Action Plans needed for transition to an environment friendly and sustainable Electricity Source mix for the Southern Region”. This Workshop was held at NIAS on 17th September 2019 to enable key stakeholders - Power Plant Owners (Central & Southern States), Pollution Control Equipment Suppliers, Regulators and Policymakers to share their experience and deliberate on the challenges to develop a road map for implementation. This report presents the gist of each talk by the invited participants, and also consolidates the key findings and recommendations of the Workshop. This summary report will form the basis for further research as well as for policy advocacy with GOI through NITI Aayog. A.V. Krishnan, Shyam Sundar R, Shilpa Srivastava and R. Srikant

Large scale analytic calculations in quantum field theories

We present a survey on the mathematical structure of zero- and single scale quantities and the associated calculation methods and function spaces in higher order perturbative calculations in relativistic renormalizable quantum field theories.Comment: 25 pages Latex, 1 style fil

Phonon-driven spin-Floquet magneto-valleytronics in MoS2

Two-dimensional materials equipped with strong spin-orbit coupling can display novel electronic, spintronic, and topological properties originating from the breaking of time or inversion symmetry. A lot of interest has focused on the valley degrees of freedom that can be used to encode binary information. By performing ab initio time-dependent density functional simulation on MoS2, here we show that the spin is not only locked to the valley momenta but strongly coupled to the optical E '' phonon that lifts the lattice mirror symmetry. Once the phonon is pumped so as to break time-reversal symmetry, the resulting Floquet spectra of the phonon-dressed spins carry a net out-of-plane magnetization (approximate to 0.024 mu(B) for single-phonon quantum) even though the original system is non-magnetic. This dichroic magnetic response of the valley states is general for all 2H semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides and can be probed and controlled by infrared coherent laser excitation

Negative Refraction Angular Characterization in One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

Background: Photonic crystals are artificial structures that have periodic dielectric components with different refractive indices. Under certain conditions, they abnormally refract the light, a phenomenon called negative refraction. Here we experimentally characterize negative refraction in a one dimensional photonic crystal structure; near the low frequency edge of the fourth photonic bandgap. We compare the experimental results with current theory and a theory based on the group velocity developed here. We also analytically derived the negative refraction correctness condition that gives the angular region where negative refraction occurs. Methodology/Principal Findings: By using standard photonic techniques we experimentally determined the relationship between incidence and negative refraction angles and found the negative refraction range by applying the correctness condition. In order to compare both theories with experimental results an output refraction correction was utilized. The correction uses Snell’s law and an effective refractive index based on two effective dielectric constants. We found good agreement between experiment and both theories in the negative refraction zone. Conclusions/Significance: Since both theories and the experimental observations agreed well in the negative refraction region, we can use both negative refraction theories plus the output correction to predict negative refraction angles. This can be very useful from a practical point of view for space filtering applications such as a photonic demultiplexer or fo

A Pair of Dopamine Neurons Target the D1-Like Dopamine Receptor DopR in the Central Complex to Promote Ethanol-Stimulated Locomotion in Drosophila

Dopamine is a mediator of the stimulant properties of drugs of abuse, including ethanol, in mammals and in the fruit fly Drosophila. The neural substrates for the stimulant actions of ethanol in flies are not known. We show that a subset of dopamine neurons and their targets, through the action of the D1-like dopamine receptor DopR, promote locomotor activation in response to acute ethanol exposure. A bilateral pair of dopaminergic neurons in the fly brain mediates the enhanced locomotor activity induced by ethanol exposure, and promotes locomotion when directly activated. These neurons project to the central complex ellipsoid body, a structure implicated in regulating motor behaviors. Ellipsoid body neurons are required for ethanol-induced locomotor activity and they express DopR. Elimination of DopR blunts the locomotor activating effects of ethanol, and this behavior can be restored by selective expression of DopR in the ellipsoid body. These data tie the activity of defined dopamine neurons to D1-like DopR-expressing neurons to form a neural circuit that governs acute responding to ethanol

Strain-Transcendent Immune Response to Recombinant Var2CSA DBL5-ε Domain Block P. falciparum Adhesion to Placenta-Derived BeWo Cells under Flow Conditions

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy-associated malaria (PAM) is a serious consequence of the adhesion to the placental receptor chondroitin sulfate A (CSA) of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes (PE) expressing the large cysteine-rich multi-domain protein var2CSA. Women become resistant to PAM, and develop strain-transcending immunity against CSA-binding parasites. The identification of var2CSA regions that could elicit broadly neutralizing and adhesion-blocking antibodies is a key step for the design of prophylactic vaccine strategies. METHODOLOGY: Escherichia coli expressed var2CSA DBL domains were refolded and purified prior to immunization of mice and a goat. Protein-G-purified antibodies were tested for their ability to block FCR3(CSA)-infected erythrocytes binding to placental (BeWo) and monkey brain endothelial (ScC2) cell lines using a flow cytoadhesion inhibition assay mimicking closely the physiological conditions present in the placenta at shear stress of 0.05 Pa. DBL5-ε, DBL6-ε and DBL5-6-ε induced cross-reactive antibodies using Alum and Freund as adjuvants, which blocked cytoadhesion at values ranging between 40 to 96% at 0.5 mg IgG per ml. Importantly, antibodies raised against recombinant DBL5-ε from 3 distinct parasites genotypes (HB3, Dd2 and 7G8) showed strain-transcending inhibition ranging from 38 to 64% for the heterologuous FCR3(CSA). CONCLUSIONS: Using single and double DBL domains from var2CSA and Alum as adjuvant, we identified recombinant subunits inducing an immune response in experimental animals which is able to block efficiently parasite adhesion in a flow cytoadhesion assay that mimics closely the erythrocyte flow in the placenta. These subunits show promising features for inclusion into a vaccine aiming to protect against PAM

Azimuthal anisotropy and correlations at large transverse momenta in p+pp+p and Au+Au collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}= 200 GeV

Results on high transverse momentum charged particle emission with respect to the reaction plane are presented for Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}$= 200 GeV. Two- and four-particle correlations results are presented as well as a comparison of azimuthal correlations in Au+Au collisions to those in $p+p$ at the same energy. Elliptic anisotropy, $v_2$, is found to reach its maximum at $p_t \sim 3$ GeV/c, then decrease slowly and remain significant up to $p_t\approx 7$ -- 10 GeV/c. Stronger suppression is found in the back-to-back high-$p_t$ particle correlations for particles emitted out-of-plane compared to those emitted in-plane. The centrality dependence of $v_2$ at intermediate $p_t$ is compared to simple models based on jet quenching.Comment: 4 figures. Published version as PRL 93, 252301 (2004

Azimuthal anisotropy in Au+Au collisions at sqrtsNN = 200 GeV

The results from the STAR Collaboration on directed flow (v_1), elliptic flow (v_2), and the fourth harmonic (v_4) in the anisotropic azimuthal distribution of particles from Au+Au collisions at sqrtsNN = 200 GeV are summarized and compared with results from other experiments and theoretical models. Results for identified particles are presented and fit with a Blast Wave model. Different anisotropic flow analysis methods are compared and nonflow effects are extracted from the data. For v_2, scaling with the number of constituent quarks and parton coalescence is discussed. For v_4, scaling with v_2^2 and quark coalescence is discussed.Comment: 26 pages. As accepted by Phys. Rev. C. Text rearranged, figures modified, but data the same. However, in Fig. 35 the hydro calculations are corrected in this version. The data tables are available at http://www.star.bnl.gov/central/publications/ by searching for "flow" and then this pape