Carbon Sinker

Our idea is to develop an innovative system to reduce the amount of black carbon concentration from Indo-Gangetic Plains

Over 930 million people - around 12% of the world’s population - spend at least 10% of their household budget to pay for health care. With the poorest people largely uninsured, health shocks and stresses already currently push around 100 million people into poverty every year, with the impacts of climate change worsening this trend.

It is estimated that India is the fourth most affected country by climate change due to its widespread impact on the country. The knowledge of the spatial and temporal distribution of black carbon especially in rural and urban environments over one of the highly polluted areas, the Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP) in the northern parts of India is very important. The IGP region is home to 900 million people who suffer from poor air quality and highly atmospheric polluted regions over the whole year, summer and winter. 

The present study addresses the measurement of black carbon concentration using real-time mobile and ambient monitoring in traffic areas. The mean ambient black carbon concentration was found to be 1.041±1.032 µg/m³ varying between 0.5 and 4.0 µg/m³. The much higher average value of 16.1 ± 16.5 µg/m³ was measured through conveyance obtained in real traffic conditions on the road. Many parts of the Indian city show black carbon particle concentrations of more than 20 µg/m³. 

Although a blind following these approaches entail varied risks of impermanence, delay, high costs, and unknowable side effects. These invisible and small particles are being inhaled by humans in a surplus manner nowadays and the concentration of these particles inside the lungs of living being is growing exponentially which may lead to the development of acute cardiovascular diseases / respiratory diseases.

Another impact on climate change has also been observed as black carbon (BC) is termed to be very effective in absorbing light resulting in heating its surroundings. The per unit mass of black carbon pertains to having a global warming potential of 460-1500 than CO2.

Due to their lightweight, the BC particles get suspended in the atmosphere which contributes to warming by converting incoming solar radiation to heat. Although many times it has also been observed that BC also influences cloud formation and impacts regional circulation and rainfall patterns.

Due to black carbon deposits created by factories, kitchens, and vehicles, Himalayan glaciers are melting faster.

Thus, to overcome these unforeseen problems, we develop a technology that is used to curb the emissions of Black Carbon from the point emitting sources by utilizing a modified Carbon sinker with a zeolite sieve tray arrangement which can be easily retrofitted in the existing kilns and biomass burners.

Currently, we examine capturing black carbon particles from kitchen chimneys, industries, and brick kilns. Which are the most common areas where carbon emissions are very high. So, through this project, we filter the air (make a healthy living environment) and make use of it, which is effective and variable in different ways. Also, this project is fully dedicated to a society in order to provide a safe and healthy environment by extracting carbon from the air to make it possible to reuse that black carbon in our daily life or participate manufacturing in different types of materials because black carbon has a tendency to provide strength and durability by mixing with resins and chemicals.

The research trends in carbon capture within the three phases, namely -pre-combustion, post-combustion, and oxy-fuel combustion. Post-combustion capture is the most refined carbon capture technology with about 80.9% of total publications retrieved, and oxyfuel ranks the lowest with (3.4%) of publications. In our research post-combustion method is used to capture black carbon particles from pollutants in which 80-90% of black carbon can be captured and the rest gas will be released through the filtration process by an activated carbon filter. 

Climate change is humanity's single biggest health threat, and health professionals worldwide are already responding to the health harms caused by this unfolding crisis.

All of India’s 1.4 billion people (100% of the country’s population) are exposed to unhealthy levels of ambient PM 2.5 – the most harmful pollutant - emanating from multiple sources.

More than 60 million inhabitants of the Indo-Gangetic plain (IGP) are exposed to enormous concentrations of atmospheric health hazardous Black carbon (BC), a sooty material emitted by fossil fuel and the burning of agricultural waste among others, a study conducted by an international team, including researchers from IIT Kharagpur,  has said

We evaluate these impacts using an integrated modeling framework, including successfully predicted BC concentrations. Population exposure to Black Carbon is notable, with more than 60 million people identified as living in hotspots of Black Carbon concentration (wintertime mean, >20 μg m−3). 

The attributable fraction of the total cardiovascular disease mortality (CVM) burden to Black Carbon exposures is 62% for the megacity. The semiurban area comprised about 49% of the total Black Carbon-attributable CVM burden over the IGP. 

More than 400,000 lives can potentially be saved from Cardiovascular disease Mortality annually by implementing prioritized emission reduction from the combustion of domestic biofuel in the semi-urban area, diesel oil in transportation, coal in thermal power plants, and brick kiln industries in megacities.

The Bio-Fuel combustion in the residential sector (40 to 50 percent) and Fossil-Fuel combustion in industrial and transportation sectors (50 to 60 percent) are dominant contributors to the wintertime black carbon concentration over the urban area in the central IGP (including Kanpur, Agra, and Varanasi).  

Our solution is intended to reduce air pollution, though we are not yet tested it on the entire city. But our aim is to improve the air quality in the area where our project will be installed. Moreover, we will conduct awareness campaigns in each area we work, hire local people, and provide them with free training related to our project. During user research, we have been very pleased with the positive results.

As well as purifying the air, we collect black carbon from polluted air and use it for a purpose. This means we need some manpower to watch out for collecting black carbon in a particular time frame, and we want to hire locals to train them and pay, this will create employment as well.

Currently, our team consists of 10 core members and 5+ associate members from a variety of academic backgrounds such as (Engineering and Medical) who all share a passion for finding the best solutions to the most pressing problems.

Core Members:

Sidhant Kumar Nishad, the team lead; is an electrical engineering student who has earned recognition from places such as IIT Kanpur and Moonshot Platform. Being able to conduct innovative projects with good research ability and having over four years of experience in project management, Innovation, and an interdisciplinary innovator.

Akash Sood, Our Operation Head, has completed his Ph.D. study on carbon capturing and sequestration and has more than 12+ years of experience in Research and development of projects related to the environment. 

Akash Kumar Patel, our operational head; is a mechanical engineering graduate with great skills in 3D modeling software such as Ansys, Solidworks, and AutoCAD, as well as 2D drafting and structural analysis. Akash is in charge of the manufacturing and design aspects of our project, with over four years of experience in development, startup, and organizational management. Awarded a prize at IIT Kanpur for his research on a smart irrigation system. 

Mohd Kaif and Shivansh Shukla, are two Information Technology background students who handle our programming-related work, and both presented their ideas to the regional level during their schooling. They are excellent web designers and app developers too. Both have individual experiences of more than three years in project development, startups, and innovation, always enthusiastic to contribute their knowledge for a better society.

Dhyanika Singh Thakur holds a degree in the medical field from Dr. Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University, Lucknow, as well as training from King George Medical University, Lucknow. Through her medical expertise, she helped us understand how air pollution and black carbon emissions affect health. She has over 3-year experience working in the medical field and also contributed to publishing some research papers on Prosthetics and Orthotics.

Amit Yadav, Ishika Sharma, Dhananjay Tiwari, and Amit Verma, of the sales team, share the same background field of electrical engineering and contribute to our project for the presentation, and bringing out information through user research. All have more than three years of experience in startups, finance, and marketing, invited to the Swachhata Startup challenge 2022, Delhi, for their unique idea on waste management.

Associate Members:

Dr. Avdhesh Kumar Sharma, Associate Professor, of Mechanical Engineering, at Rajkiya Engineering College, Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh, India, Assisting us in research and development by connecting with professors.

Dr. Anshul Kumar Mishra, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, Rajkiya Engineering College, Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh, India, our operational and production head, helping us with business development, company formation, and product development with over more than eight-year experience in startups and entrepreneurs.

Dr. Matsyendra Nath Shukla, Assistant Professor, of Physics, at  Rajkiya Engineering College, Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh, India, Assisting us in conducting research and prototyping.

Conducted a discussion session with professors of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Delhi, and Professors Sant Longwal Institute of Engineering and Technology concluded with many points on aerosol distribution over Indo-Gangetic Plains.

Moreover, we were invited to attend the Swachta Startup Conclave 2022 event where 30 startups presented their ideas, some of which were working on carbon products. They were highly impressed with our work and expressed interest in working with us as well. We gained great insight into our potential users and market through this event.

Startups working on eco-battery concepts agree to use our product and work with our idea.

The Solv[ED] micro-grant workshop helped us understand the idea of researching and designing prototypes.

As a result, we visited local industries in Agra, Panki Power Plant, and Lucknow Pollution Control Board, Uttar Pradesh, India for a better understanding of the feasibility of the research work and to learn how pollution is monitored.

As per user research Chief Development Officer of Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh agrees with us to provide all support for installing the project in the city.

As a global manufacturer startup, Zetwerk offered to assist us in designing and developing our prototype. They fully agreed with our idea and approved our proof of concept.

This work aims to present the capability of a zeolite mesh-equipped carbon sinker in reducing PM2.5 emissions, especially black carbon from biomass burners and kilns. As it presents a suitable option for different carbon sinker designs. Furthermore, the particulate matter reduction efficiency and operational pressure drop of the carbon sinker with zeolite will be assessed in comparison with the performance of the carbon sinker alone.

We're trying to do something that isn't done very often. Currently, this method is used to remove oxygen from the air, but we're trying to remove black carbon from the air. In addition to some research articles, we also developed a small demonstration prototype where we tested the resulting sample and found a small number of black carbon particles, which supports our hypothesis.

In comparison to the current methods of air filtering used in industries, like Electrostatic Precipitators and Catalytic Converters in vehicles, they require more energy to run and are both economically expensive to operate. However, our solution is designed so that it does not require much energy to operate, simply a 500-watt solar panel at 24 volts can power it, whereas a 2-3Kw solar panel will be sufficient for industrial use.

We are pledging to reduce our carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 – a first for the carbon black industry. Drawing on our sustainability progress, our customer relationships, and our ongoing innovations we are confident that we can achieve our goal.

Our strategy for reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to achieve net zero remains anchored by the 4Rs: Research, Reduce, Replace and Repurpose.

Targeting a reduction in emissions over the coming decades, we will focus on decarbonizing our business and decoupling our emissions from our production levels. Achieving this requires industry collaboration, so we engage experts and create long-term partnerships to reach our goal.

We will research new ways to capture and convert carbon emissions. A significant part of our net zero targets will come from future technologies that capture and convert carbon dioxide into valuable carbon products. We will focus on investing in and developing these technologies and assets

We will reduce our dependence on traditional manufacturing processes. We will continue to optimize processes for converting carbon to carbon black and prioritize energy efficiencies throughout our operations.

We will replace our current energy and feedstock with low-carbon solutions. We will focus on adding renewable energy solutions and shifting a portion of our production to alternative feedstocks derived from biomass.

We will repurpose materials through a circular approach, by creating more circular products, we will enable our customers to develop the next generation of sustainable products. Our carbon black boost product longevity, preventing end-of-life materials from going to landfill.

In the current aspect of mitigation methods and technologies, air pollution control (APC) devices are being utilized in different forms and collect different types of pollutants, including PM. A general rule in PM reduction is that the larger the particles, the easier they are to separate from the gas stream. However, the major concern arrives from the small PM, i.e., PM2.5, which is hard to trap.

A carbon sinker is termed to be a gas cleaning device that employs centrifugal force, which spins a gas stream into a swirling action to remove particles from it. The carbon sinkers require low capital and operational expenditure. However, the carbon sinkers transform the flow of gas from linear to rotational causing the larger particles to collide with the inner walls of the carbon sinker and are thus separated from the bulk stream.

In often, the parameters used to indicate a carbon sinker’s particulate removal performances are the inlet velocity and the pressure drop. The gas stream's inlet with a certain velocity is motivated by the pressure generated. The pressure drop, on the other hand, refers to the difference between a flowing stream's inlet and the outlet pressure. 

All mandatory sensors for measurement of air velocity, pressure, and temperature will be integrated with the data acquisition system roving its online data to the assisted workstation along with the controlling devices like mass flow controllers/rotameters and variable frequency drives (VFD) to control the flow rate of the inlet and rpm of the assisted motors, respectively.

It has been found that incorporating a filter into the outlet of the carbon sinker may help collect the remaining particulates with smaller aerodynamic diameters. Common filters, such as diesel- and gasoline-particulate filters, assure high particulate removal efficiency from internal combustion engine exhausts. 

Modified zeolites are recognized to be less effective at high temperatures and more effective at ambient temperatures. To make zeolites more operative at high temperatures, modified zeolites are proposed, in which both chemisorption and physisorption phenomena will take place.

As of now, we haven't launched our solution, but we are targeting to serve people in Mainpuri City in Uttar Pradesh next year. The Chief Development Officer has given us the approval to setup the project in Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh. 

As the majority of the population lives in urban areas, approximately 100-200k, and the rest is in rural areas, we targeted about 100k people for our solution.

We targeted nearly 1000+ people to get employed as well in the coming next year and we also hire interns of students from our campus, through which an ecosystem of project development and research will build.

Our goal is to reduce air pollution to the greatest extent possible, so we plan to install this near traffic area and industrial areas. It is estimated that about 10 units will be set up next year for maximum positive effects.

Being a college society, financial barriers will be one of the biggest hindrances we face as we aim to grow our project. We are currently in the ideation and prototype development phase and not having any facility site, We are, however, struggling to purchase production equipment and pay for personnel to aid the production process.

We don't have any constant guidance, and legal advice for patents, or research publications. We don't have large labs facility to conduct research so we need to go different institutes such as IIT Kanpur.

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Two groups of partners are currently working with us on R&D. 

• IIT Kanpur's Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre for the development of a prototype and analysis of market feasibility.
• The Uttar Pradesh Government is piloting the solution and supporting deployments with its capital and resources.

We incorporated our company looking to this business model in November 2022, through which we decided to carry our work with a single company.

Through the help of the Air pollution Monitoring department and online software for monitoring air pollution and black carbon emissions, we will install our project in the selected area.

After Installation at defined areas, we will sign a contract with them regarding installing a device that prevents them from using other alternatives. The maintenance servicing will be done by our team for a one-year free-of-service.

Carbon sinkers will be available in various sizes based on user preference, which can be used at kitchen chimneys, brick kilns, biomass burners, etc. Depending on the size of the area, if it is for a small area, then the cost will be low, while for a larger area, the cost will be higher.

It will be a hybrid business model where customers can earn also if they purchase our device and sell bi-product ( Black Carbon) back to us. otherwise, install the device as a subsidy with no involvement in collected bi-product

This is a hybrid model where customers also profit from our product and we get easy access to install it. In this way, our products are purchased by customers when they see the benefits of buying them.

The systems require less maintenance due to less rotational components, and power consumption after four to five years it requires some maintenance or replacement, but it can negligible and does not affect revenue greatly.

Based on data, the black carbon market size was USD 12.61 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to USD 18.09 billion by 2029.

We got a better understanding of the market demand for carbon black through our user research, and nano-form carbon has a high demand at 12.28 USD per gram. Our main objective is to stockpile black carbon from different sources and then sell it in various forms on the market after quality checks.

Prices for a raw product without laboratory processes are sold at normal prices or at market prices. The prices can increase once they are laboratory processed and sold to industries dealing with carbon products, such as tires, carbon fibers, etc.

We have targeted to collect a large amount of nano-carbon form and if the expected amount is collected, this will give us profit within one year after installation of our device.

Among the potential buyers of our extracted black carbon is Birla Carbon Company. Our sales team will contact Birla Carbon about black carbon, they also provide partnerships to purchase more black carbon, which is of priority to us. Many battery makers can use this collected black carbon as conducting material.

Selling the whole unit to particularly targeted consumers such as restaurants and factories, according to our policies. The whole unit will be in the range of 1k to 20k USD, as per size.