Recycling and Treatment of Settling Pond Fines - A challenge to Industry and Environment

About 3.0 Million tonness of coking coal fines (-0.5mm) generated from various coal preparation plants are lying in the lagoons/settling ponds in the vicinity of these plants for quite some time . In addition, 60,0001t of slurries are being bled every month to these waste basins. These discarded coal fines which contain significant amount of vitrinite enriched coking materials, are not being properly utilised due to the following reasons. (i)Inability of existing coal washing circuit to benef- iciate these coal fines from the slurry economically ii) Environmental restrictions regarding waste disposal were not stringent; (iii) Non-availability of suit- able technology to recover the coal fines at desired quality. To use these coal slurry fines, CFRI through decades long R&D efforts have developed an improved process technology, which can recover finest cleans (ash < 15%) from the said high ash (30-35%) coal slurry. Based on CFRI to Tech-nology, three mini flotation plants have been commissioned of throughput capacity 5 to 10 tph in small scale sector, which are successfully producing cleans (Yield 50-60%, and Moisture < 20%) from high ash coal slurry and dispatching the low ash cleans to M/s IISCO. Burnpur as one of their coking blend constituents for metallurgical coke making. Many irety mini flotation plants are coming into picture based upon this technology. This paper summarises data, concerning slurry pond quality estimate, floatability, material recovery, etc

Stress Corrosion Cracking of Stainless Steel Super Heater Tubes in 200 MW Boiler

A few cases of super heater tube failures by corrosion were noticed in a boiler of 210 MW units of NTPC stations. The failure investigation was carried out at the Research and Development centre of NTPC. The failed tubes were examined by using Optical, scanning Electron Microscope and conventional methods. The material of the tube was stabilised grade austenitic stainless steel. The micro-scopic examination indicated the presence of a large number of transgranular cracks with branches. The surface analysis by EDAX revealed the presence of chloride in the corrosion products. The reason of failure has been attributed to chloride induced stress corrosion cracking. Chloride ions had generated supposedly due to leaching of residual contaminants carried over from manufacturing stage. It was suggested to check the cracks already gene-rated by NDT methods and wash the tube panels which were already installed. After implementation of the recomm-endations, no such case of tube failure was reported. The present paper describes the investigations carried out and the remedial measures to prevent chloride induced stress corrosion cracking in supper heater tubes

Screening the risk factors of type 2 diabetes mellitus in minor ethnic Bishnupriya Manipuri community in Bangladesh

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) development involves various interrelated risk factors, including age, gender, obesity, and inactivity. However, research lacks insights into the risk factors within the minor ethnic Bishnupriya Manipuri community in Bangladesh. This study aimed to identify T2DM risk factors within this community. Methods: This survey-based prospective observational study was conducted in different villages of Kamalgonj Upazila under the Moulvibazar district in Bangladesh from March 2023 to June 2023 enrolled 280 individuals using purposive sampling. Data collection involved a questionnaire, verbal agreement, and diagnostic documentation. Analysis utilized Microsoft Office and the student’s t-test. Results: Participants exhibited a 1:1.2 male-female ratio, with 64% aged 36-65. 43% were housewives, 55% engaged in moderate work, 15% smoked, and 41% had a family history of diabetes. Diabetic cases accounted for 39%, with an average age of 57.39±11.99 years, significantly higher than non-diabetic cases (46.79±17.93 years). Diabetic cases also showed significantly higher waist circumference (94.11±6.63 cm versus 84.71±14.76 cm) and body mass index (BMI) (26.12±7.61 kg/m2 versus 21.44±6.97 kg/m2). Conclusions: T2DM predominantly affects older individuals in the Bishnupriya Manipuri community. Increased waist circumference, overweight, and obesity emerged as significant risk factors for T2DM within this population

Assessing performance of horticultural farmers producer companies: Comparative case study

Every year the horticultural sector of India faces huge quantity of food wastage due to lack of processing, value addition and post-harvest handling. Farmers Producer Company (FPC) can mitigate the loss through ensuring better value chain management. There are several horticulture based FPCs established in different parts of India. They have grown very fast and competing with agro-industries. The present study aimed to assess the performance of FPCs working in horticulture sector. The study was conducted in Maharashtra State of India by selecting three FPCs working in horticultural sector. Performance of these FPCs was assessed through Effectiveness Index developed for this study. Seven components viz. functional effectiveness, increase in income, increase in farmers share in consumers rupees, inclusiveness, sustainability of company, farmers satisfaction and empowerment were included in the index by following standard index forming protocol. Sahyadri Farms was found the best performing one among the selected FPCs, regarding effectiveness with a mean index score of 63.69 followed by Vasundhara Agro Producer Company Limited (50.20) and Junnar Taluka FPC Ltd. (41.29)

Fermi-surface induced modulation in an optimally doped YBCO superconductor

We have observed a Fermi-surface (FS) induced lattice modulation in a YBCO superconductor with a wavevector along CuO chains, {\it i.e.} ${\bf q}_1$=(0,$\delta$,0). The value of $\delta\sim0.21$ is twice the Fermi wavevector ($2{\bf k}_F$) along {\bf b*} connecting nearly nested FS `ridges'. The ${\bf q}_1$ modulation exists only within O-vacancy-ordered islands (characterized by ${\bf q}_0$=$(\frac14,0,0))$ and persists well above and below $T_c$. Our results are consistent with the presence of a FS-induced charge-density wave

Improving high-T_c dc-SQUID performance by junction asymmetry

We study noise and noise energy of a high-T$_c$ dc SQUID fabricated on a high-$\epsilon_R$ substrate whose conduction properties are given by transmission line physics. We show that transmission line resonances greatly enhance the noise. Remarkably, resistance asymmetry enhances these resonances even more. However, as the transfer function scales the same way, the noise energy is reduced by asymmetry greatly enhancing the flexibility and performance of the SQUID.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. v2: published versio

Three path interference using nuclear magnetic resonance: a test of the consistency of Born's rule

The Born rule is at the foundation of quantum mechanics and transforms our classical way of understanding probabilities by predicting that interference occurs between pairs of independent paths of a single object. One consequence of the Born rule is that three way (or three paths) quantum interference does not exist. In order to test the consistency of the Born rule, we examine detection probabilities in three path intereference using an ensemble of spin-1/2 quantum registers in liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance (LSNMR). As a measure of the consistency, we evaluate the ratio of three way interference to two way interference. Our experiment bounded the ratio to the order of $10^{-3} \pm 10^{-3}$, and hence it is consistent with Born's rule.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures; Improved presentation of figures 1 and 4, changes made in section 2 to better describe the experiment, minor changes throughout, and added several reference