Thermal power reactor

A nucear power plant where heat energy is produced via nuclear reactor. In common practise, all over the world use Boiling Water Reactor ( BWR ). Here coolant system is water tank system attatched to fuel element. The same component is acting as moderator and reflector. The basic principle here is a heavy neclues when undergo a nuclear fission chain reaction, heat energy in enormous amount is generated. the heat energy naturally converted into steam which produces electricity.Actually steam is fed to turbine.Exhaust steam in the turbine pass through the condenser system of coolant and get condensed into water. The feed pump is utilised now for recirculation of water into reactor. During continuous power generation process, this coolant recirculation process also continuously repeated. In fission, a heavy nucleus splits into two lighter nuclei. Neutrons intiates this reaction and this can occur even at room temperature generating energy per nucleon upto 0.85 MeV.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Two months back whole world suffered a lot because of the sharp hike in crude oil price. For one barrel it reached upto some $150 which was terribly bad for any developing country. A developing country like India should initiate the alternative energy sources search to combat with this dilemma. Now let us examine the possible alternatives before India. First one is no doubt the tidal power. India is having very wide coastal geography that can be utilised effectively for power generation. But scientists now reporting huge installation expense for tidal energy setup but they are optimistic that in near future that can be made economical. Second one is wind energy which is very much economical and suzlon energy is its authority in India. Suzlon energy is now in india's National stock exchange (NSE 50)listed share. But wind energy production equipment requires fine blades which are very expensive. Third alternative is no doubt solar. Rigourous research is progressing in this field all over India. Fourth one is biofuel but ouput is too low.

soft and hard magnetic materials

Ferromagnetic materials can be of two types: one class with thin hysteresis loop characteristics and are called soft magnetic materials. Their coercive field value and area under the loop are small. Hence hysteresis loss and eddy current loss are minimum. These materials (ferrite an example) are used in transformer cores which are used in power transmission. These materials can easily magnetized and demagnetized. Other class is called hard magnetic material with large hysteresis loop. some iron alloys are examples. Demagnetizing these materials is not easy. hence they are used to make permanent amagnets. coercive field, hysteresis loss, eddy current loss are more in this class with very low initial permeability. Antiferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic materials are also belongs to ferromagnetic category but net magnetic moment is nil in antiferromagnetic while in ferrimagnetic materials, there exist a slight magnetic moment.

Solar cell material

why can't we try a solar cell material by plating soft ferrite material over Gallium arsenide thin film. Aluminium and ferrite material is coated over semiconductor junction just like a grating. This design may enhance the charge capacity of solar cell module. Soft ferrite material can be synthesized by highly toxic gel liquid methods. For coating we cannot use liquid dipping method, spray pyrolisis method or vacuum evaporation method. Best mean is to use magnetic sputtering method. But conditions and precautions are problems-that can be fixed by trial and error methods. Once prepared samples be heat treated to make it crystalline. Crystalline samples are easy to characterize. We cannot predict the use untill we obtain an efficient and pure solar cell module.

material science research

A material science researcher starts its work by synthesizing a material-either in powder form or liquid form. Thin film researchers will produce thin film of the material. Next step is to study the structural studies by using any diffraction method. He can use neutron diffraction, X-ray diffraction, electron diffraction or ion beam scattering. In crystallography all these characterisation tools are important. Nowadays fine and accurate structure refinement possible by means of novel software in market. powder diffractometers are in market under brand names of Rigaku, Philips, EG&G, HP and Fritsch.

LabVIEW

Researchers can use LabVIEW software package effectevely for automation of sophisticated electronic and nonelectronic instruments. LabVIEW package formulated by National instruments is now widely used by material science researchers for auotomating various devices such as, Piccoammeter, Impedence analyzer, Hysteresis loop tracer, Hall probe, scanning electron microscope, transmission electroscope, scanning probe microscope etc.

For example when you use LabVIEW for automating hysteresis loop tracer, within a second it can generate values such as saturation magnetisation, coercivity, remnance etc. of many samples at different temperature.

Magnetic

Nickel Iron Oxide
This material is a magnetic material with some anomalous properties. This material is used as transformer core material, as a precursor in magnetic fluids, for magneting coating and many other applications. This material is entirely different from Zinc iron oxide and cadmium iron oxide. Nickel iron oxide is not antiferromagnetic. Magnetic ordering is very fine in Nickel iron oxide. Some of the methods of production of nickel iron oxide is given below:
1. Ceramic solid method: Here Nickel oxide and alpha iron oxide powders are mixed for several hours using acetone as medium. Keep the mixed powder in an hot oven at 500 Kelvin temperature for 24 hours. Again mix the powder for several hours without acetone. Now heat the powder to 1000 Kelvin temperature using a good high temperature furnace. Now the sample is ready.
2. Liquid method: Nickel sulphate and ferrous sulphate pure materials dissolved in distilled water. This solution is treated with sodium hydroxide solution until pH of the solution becomes 11. Now the solution is heated to 450 Kelvin and cooled. While cooling some ferric nitrate crystals are added to the solution. Again heat the solution until solution becomes orange red in colour. Cool the solution and filter to obtain nickel iron oxide.
Properties of Nickel iron oxide
This is almost a nanomaterial from the X-ray diffraction data of sample 1(by ceramic method) and 2 (by liquid method)