Indian space programme director encourages hydrogen fuel research
According to the programme director of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), V. Gnana Gandhi, India should be focussing on promoting use of hydrogen fuel, as well as conducting further research on the subject. At a mechanical engineering conference in India yesterday, Mr. Gandhi said “I strongly feel the fuel of the future is hydrogen…If hydrogen is used as fuel, there will be minimum pollution.”

October 16, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 10:11 am IST - VILUPPURAM:

The country should focus on tapping hydrogen fuel and conducting more research on it, eminent technocrat and programme director with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) V.Gnana Gandhi has said.

Inaugurating an international conference on advances in mechanical engineering held at University College of Engineering, Villupuram, Mr. Gandhi said, “I strongly feel the fuel of the future is hydrogen. We have used it for our rockets. Unfortunately, it is not freely available but abundantly present in the universe. Several countries are working on how to separate hydrogen from water with minimum energy.”

Advocating the widespread use of hydrogen fuel in automobiles, Mr. Gandhi said every major city was facing pollution problem owing to petrol or diesel vehicles. “If hydrogen is used as fuel, there will be minimum pollution,” he said.

Suggesting introduction of hydrogen-fuelled buses in big cities, he said, “Today we can harvest hydrogen from many industries like petroleum products or refineries. That itself is sufficient for running 1000 buses in cities like Chennai.”

Mr. Gandhi, who has contributed to the area of rocket propulsion for several years, is involved in the realisation of hydrogen bus with Tata Motors.

Urging engineering graduates to focus their attention on new technologies, he said harnessing solar energy by synthetic-chlorophyll, pilot-less flying object technology and methane mining from sea bed were some of the new areas which required innovative and practical solutions.

Mr. Gandhi said alternative energy such as solar, wind power, ocean, thermal, geo-thermal sources were being developed. For any energy problem, mechanical engineering offered solution.

“In India, we have government department for doing research on atomic energy, space and defence. But, we don’t have an exclusive institute to concentrate on research on energy with time-bound goals,” Mr. Gandhi said.

S. Gowri, Director, Educational Multi- Media Research Centre, Anna University, said engineering played a major role in the word and many new technologies had been evolving fast . Engineering students should learn more new technologies for better job opportunities.

R. Senthil, Dean in charge of University College of Engineering, Villupuram, said the organising committee received 350 technical papers which were sent to peer review and 244 papers were accepted.