Climate change and 2030 cooling demand in Ahmedabad, India: opportunities for expansion of renewable energy and cool roofs.

Most of India's current electricity demand is met by combustion of fossil fuels, particularly coal. But the country has embarked on a major expansion of renewable energy and aims for half of its electricity needs to be met by renewable sources by 2030. As climate change-driven temperature increases continue to threaten India's population and drive increased demand for air conditioning, there is a need to estimate the local benefits of policies that increase renewable energy capacity and reduce cooling demand in buildings.

Macro-seepage based potential new hydrocarbon prospects in Assam-Arakan Basin, India.

Active macro seepages of methane that occur in between the north bank of the Brahmaputra river and Himalayan foothill region of Assam Arakan Basin, India, indicate the presence of hydrocarbon accumulation in the subsurface, but the hydrocarbon prospects in this region are not well studied. We carried out an extensive field sampling, which included a total of 58 sediment core collections from an active gas seepage location and nearby areas at a depth of 2-2.5 m.

Enhanced carbon-sulfur cycling in the sediments of Arabian Sea oxygen minimum zone center.

Biogeochemistry of oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) sediments, which are characterized by high input of labile organic matter, have crucial bearings on the benthic biota, gas and metal fluxes across the sediment-water interface, and carbon-sulfur cycling. Here we couple pore-fluid chemistry and comprehensive microbial diversity data to reveal the sedimentary carbon-sulfur cycle across a water-depth transect covering the entire thickness of eastern Arabian Sea OMZ, off the west coast of India. Geochemical data show remarkable increase in average total organic carbon content and aerial sulfate reduction rate (J) in the sediments of the OMZ center coupled with shallowing of sulfate methane transition zone and hydrogen sulfide and ammonium build-up.

Nested seaweed cellulose fiber deposited with cuprous oxide nanorods for antimicrobial activity.

Bird's nest type architectural network of cellulosic nanofibers was extracted, with nearly 34% yield, from green filamentous seaweed Chaetomorpha antennina using mild bleaching agent. Nanorods of cuprous oxide (CuO) were grown over the porous sheet, prepared from the seaweed cellulose, by one step hydrothermal method. The seaweed cellulose and CuO nanorods deposited seaweed cellulose sheets, were characterized by XRD, SEM-EDX, FT-IR, TGA and tensile test.

Zinc oxide nanorod clusters deposited seaweed cellulose sheet for antimicrobial activity.

Seaweed cellulose was isolated from green seaweed Ulva fasciata using a common bleaching agent. Sheet containing porous mesh was prepared from the extracted seaweed crystalline cellulose along with zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorod clusters grown over the sheet by single step hydrothermal method. Seaweed cellulose and zinc oxide nanorod clusters deposited seaweed cellulose sheet was characterized by FT-IR, XRD, TGA, and SEM-EDX.