National Symposium-2020
National Symposium-2020 on "Opportunities and Challenges in Materials for Energy Generation and Storage for Electric Vehicles" held at COEP, Pune on 3rd - 4th January 2020
The Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science at the College of Engineering Pune had organized a two-day National Symposium on “Opportunities and Challenges in Materials for Energy Generation and Storage for Electric Vehicles”, under the auspices of and in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Metals, Pune Chapter on 3 rd - 4 th January 2020. Professor B. B. Ahuja, Director, COEP and Professor S. P. Butee, Head of the Department, Metallurgy and Materials Science, COEP welcomed all those present on this occasion. Professor Ahuja highlighted this symposium as a great opportunity for the Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science professionals from Industry, Academia and Research centers to engage in exchange of ideas in the field of energy materials for electric vehicles. Professor Butee accentuated that the symposium will eventually lay a roadmap endowed with guidelines to all concerned for betterment of the Materials Science and Renewable energy domain. “We must think big and aspire to become world leaders in certain selected areas of science and technology. We must aim for becoming the first in the world to invent or innovate in certain areas of interest and value to our country and our people”. That was the message of Dr. R A Mashelkar for the young engineers, during his inspiring address. Dr Mashelkar, the former Director General, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and former Chairman of the National Innovation Foundation, and the Chief Guest on this occasion, delivered the inaugural address on the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) campus. Dr. U Kamachi Mudali, Chairman and Chief Executive of Heavy Water Board, Department of Atomic Energy and President, Indian Institute of Metals delivered the Presidential address on this occasion. It was also an occasion to felicitate and honour Professor E C Subbarao, one of the doyens of materials science education and research in India. A few days back, Professor Subbarao was also honoured with the INAE’s highest honour, the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) Lifetime Contribution Award in Engineering (2019) in Jaipur on Dec 13, 2019. Professor Subbarao returned to India in 1963 (he was working at the Westinghouse Research in USA) as the first head of the Department of Metallurgy at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK). He went on to become the first Dean of Faculty at IITK and assisted Professor Kelkar, the founding director of IITK to build it as the premier academic institution in the country. In the eighties, at the invitation of the Tata Group, Professor Subbarao came to Pune as the founding Director of the Tata R&D Design Centre (TRDDC), as a Division of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). TRDDC within a few years grew to become a premier institution, providing highly engineered and innovative solutions to the challenging problems facing Indian industry, in particular based on the state-of-the-art modelling and simulation tools and technologies. The charter of TRDDC was to “apply existing knowledge 2 for the benefit of our industry and people” in the words of Mr. JRD Tata, the then chairman of Tata Sons, who took a lot of interest in TRDDC’s formative years. Professor Subbarao through his association with these two iconic institutions has mentored several Indian professionals who went on to become highly successful professional leaders in academic or industrial research. A Special Issue of the Transactions, Indian Institute of Metals, on the theme “Special Topics in Advanced Materials Engineering”, co-edited by Pradip, Himanshu Jain and Hiamadri S Maiti and published by Springer in honour of Professor Subbarao’s 90th birthday, was released on this occasion, both as a hard copy as well as a CD containing all the papers, by Dr. R A Mashelkar, and Dr. U. Kamachi Mudali.
All those present, including Dr. Mashelkar, Dr. Kamachi Mudali, Professor B B Ahuja, Director, COEP, Professor Butee, Dr. Pradip and Professor H S Maiti, paid rich tributes to Professor Subbarao’s contributions to material engineering research and leadership during his illustrious career and his immense contributions in creating the science and technology eco-system in India.
Professor Subbarao in his brief address paid rich compliments to his mentors like Professor Kelkar, Mr JRD Tata and Mr FC Kohli and his so many students, colleagues and associates over the years who have made him what he is today. All those present wished Professor Subbarao a long, healthy and professionally rewarding life ahead. On this auspicious occasion, Dr. U. Kamachi Mudali released the National Symposium Souvenir which comprised of extended abstracts of all the invited talks on plethora of topics related to various materials engaged in electric vehicles. Professor N. B. Dhokey proposed the vote of thanks. He thanked the guest of honour, the chief guest, President-IIM, dignitaries on the dais and invited speakers for their positive response to request for their presence in the symposium. He expressed his gratitude towards all the sponsors for this event and towards everyone who has been a part of the event, along with people gathered to attend the inauguration ceremony.
The recent boom in electronics and electric vehicles has raised the demand for high performance energy generation systems and rechargeable batteries. The broad scope of this symposium was an overview on energy materials in global context, conventional energy generation and storage systems, advanced materials for clean and renewable energy, ceramics in fuel cells, ionic conduction in engineering applications, electrolytes in fuel cell batteries, various materials in storage and dissipation of electric and magnetic energy, an insight into a smart energy system approach, computation of the energy efficiency of storage systems, challenges in the design of future renewable energy systems, recycling of solid state batteries. These invited talks were delivered by the eminent experts from IITs, NIT, IISER, CSIR, National Labs and Industries. Some of the speakers were Dr. Satishchandra Ogale - IISER-Pune, Dr. Dhananjay Kumar-COEP, Dr. H. S. Maiti-CSIR-CGCRI, Dr. M. Srinivas- NSTL, Dr. Deep Prakash - BARC, Dr. Yashodhan Gokhale -OPS, Mr. Sameer Shinde - Vikarsh, Dr. Mangesh Mahajan - Malvern, Dr. Manjusha V. Shelke - CSIR-NCL, Dr. S.A. Ilangovan - VSSC-ISRO, Dr. Naga Neehar Dingari - TRDDC, Dr. Sarika Phadke-Kelkar- KPIT, Dr. M. K. Jha - CSIR-NML, Dr. Sivaraman -NMRL, Dr. Bhupesh Agrawal - JohnDeere, Dr. Mahesh Mynam - TRDDC, Dr. Satyajit Phadke - CES. A crowd of about 60 delegates from different segments of industries /academia / R and D labs participated in this symposium. Overall, this symposium was appreciated and was able to summarize the recent development work in the area of energy materials for the future growth of electric vehicles.