School of Natural Sciences and Engineering

Parametric Analysis of Silica Gel for Thermal Energy Storage in Space Heating Applications

High energy density and minimal energy losses render thermochemical energy storage (TCES) systems a promising long-term solution for space heating applications. While inorganic salt hydrates are considered effective thermochemical materials, challenges such as cycling stability, agglomeration, and deliquescence during the charging and discharging processes limit their efficacy. Porous matrices, like silica gel (SiO2), present a viable alternative to address these issues.

Investigation of Stratification Performance in Oil-based and Water-based Cylindrical Thermal Storages for Industrial Applications

The present study uses a three-dimensional numerical model to investigate the thermal stratification performance of vertical cylindrical thermal energy storage under simultaneous charging and discharging operations pertinent to low-temperature (below 100 ℃) industrial applications. First, the study investigates an oil-based TES using Hytherm 600 as the heat storage medium, and water circulating through the

Anthropogenic histories, affective geographies: The macaques of urban India

Multispecies ethnographies have begun to understand the sentient lives of nonhuman beings within increasingly human-dominated, ecological contexts of the Anthropocene, especially in India, where the close physical and emotional proximity of humans and macaques over centuries have led to intense interspecies behavioural exchanges and to slow, but irreversible, processes of synurbisation, wherein individual macaques have begun to adapt to urban ecologies.

Politicising problem wildlife: Insights from the ‘vermin’ campaign for the wild pig in Kerala, southern India

Management strategies for nuisance wildlife species are typically contentious policy decisions that reveal much about socio-political tensions in a region as they do about the depredating behaviour of wildlife. We examined human-wild pig conflict in the state of Kerala, southern India, to understand the circumstances behind the state government repeatedly petitioning the federal government for a vermin status for wild pigs.

Politicising problem wildlife: Insights from the ‘vermin’ campaign for the wild pig in Kerala, southern India

Management strategies for nuisance wildlife species are typically contentious policy decisions that reveal much about socio-political tensions in a region as they do about the depredating behaviour of wildlife. We examined human-wild pig conflict in the state of Kerala, southern India, to understand the circumstances behind the state government repeatedly petitioning the federal government for a vermin status for wild pigs.

Novel multiscale model for grain-packed inorganic salt hydrate-based open thermochemical storage for low-temperature space heating applications

This study presents the development, validation, and application of a multiscale numerical model for an open thermochemical energy storage (TCES) reactor using SrBr2·6H2O as the representative reactive medium. The objective is to accurately capture and predict the coupled phenomena of heat and mass transfer occurring across two physical scales—the reactor bed and individual salt grains—during hydration and dehydration cycles. Experiments are conducted on a rectangular stainless-steel reactor filled with SrBr2·6H2O under controlled inlet air conditions.