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Day: July 29, 2020

Chemophobia: how are chemists addressing a chemophobic public?

Background of the Chemophobia:

Usually, people feel an intense association with the natural world. E. O. Wilson named this perception biophilia as: ‘the urge to affiliate with other forms of life’. That logic of association fetches great passionate satisfaction, which can decrease levels of ire, nervousness and agony. However, this conscious biophilia lately has procreated an extreme variant: Chemophobia, a reflexive denial of current synthetic chemicals.

Chemophobia is a consequence of the modern ecological drive, specifically following the publication of the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962, which had vilified chemicals as “the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation… entering into living organisms passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death”. This book has helped to promote unleaded petrol, the Clean Air Act, the banning of DDT, and other hugely important environmental benign developments. Conversely, even as much of the world became biophilic or cleaner, the anti-chemical movement became so intensified that almost all synthetic chemicals are now considered harmful. This false hypothesis has led to a rise in demand for products that are ‘natural’ or even ‘chemical-free’.

Analysis of situation:

A picture of a random scene: A company brings a new shampoo into the market, advertises it as being made of ‘all natural ingredients’, and also devoid of ‘chemicals’. Immediately, sales of the shampoo sore very high since general public rush to buy the product ignoring a simple logic that no shampoo can be chemical free.

In reality, ‘natural’ products are customarily more chemically complex than anything we can synthesize in the laboratory. Chemophobia continues to wonder us with the ludicrousness of its manifestations. Consumers from European countries aspire to live in a world where chemical substances do not exist. They do everything they can to avoid contact with “chemical substances” in their daily life and chemical substances scare them.

There was a time when chemistry stimulated assurance. People appreciated it and put hope in it. In his novel Fécondité (1899; Fruitfulness), the famous French writer Emilee Zola depicted his hero ‘Mathieu Froment, a deprived but diligent proud father of twelve children who voiced a noteworthy conviction in the ability of chemistry to help the mankind: “Even if the world should become densely populated, even if food supplies, such as we know them, should fall short, chemistry would extract other means of subsistence from inorganic matter”.

Natural vs. Synthetic Chemical:

The distinction between natural and synthetic chemicals is not merely ambiguous, it is non-existent. The fact that an ingredient is synthetic does not automatically make it dangerous, and the fact that it is natural doesn’t make it safe. Botulinum, produced by bacteria that grow in honey, is more than 1.3 billion times as toxic as lead and is the reason why infants should never eat honey. A cup of apple seeds contains enough natural cyanide to kill an adult human. Natural chemicals can be beneficial, neutral or harmful depending on the dosage and on how they are used, just like synthetic chemicals. Whether a chemical is ‘natural’ should never be a factor when assessing its safety. Misconceptions about natural versus synthetic compounds can have devastating consequences. The anxiety over formaldehyde is a telling example. Formaldehyde occurs naturally in fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs and foliage. It is found in high concentrations in Peking duck (120 ppm), smoked salmon (50 ppm), and processed meats (20 ppm) as a normal result of traditional curing processes. It is found at levels of around 2 ppm in a healthy human body, where it plays an important role in the production of DNA. Formaldehyde is also used in various industries as a preservative. People automatically accept the many ‘natural’ sources of formaldehyde that are present all around, but minuscule traces of ‘artificial’ formaldehyde in vaccines and cosmetics have caused public outcry – even though all formaldehyde is chemically exactly the same: CH2O. Vaccines also contain tiny amounts of formaldehyde. Concern about ‘artificial’ formaldehyde is one reason some people avoid vaccinations, even though the level of formaldehyde found in a vaccine (100 µg) is 80 times less than in a single pear (12,000 µg).

Chemophobia: How to tackle it?

Ultimately, conversation might be the best way to solve Chemophobia. Whether that conversation is BASF opening its labs to environmental campaigners so they can see what safety systems are in place, or teaching undergraduates that xantham gum comes from bacteria, yet is used as a thickener in cooking quite safely, part of the conversation is accepting people’s fears.  This is also one of the possible answers to the problem of Chemophobia, as the findings of recent surveys confirm the rise of irrational desires and the existence of fundamental gaps in basic chemical knowledge.

 Following points should be communicated to general public to evade this phobia:

  1. Chemicals are only chemicals, and their source is immaterial to theircharacteristics, provided of course that they are pure. They can be extracted from a natural resource, or synthesized industrially – it makes no difference
  2. Any chemical would be harmful to a person if one consume or breathe in enough of them – it’s the dose that matters. For example protein can be poison if snake bites and push sufficient amount of it to the victim’s body.
  3. Chemicals reinforce much of our modern way of living.Many chemicals are imperative for our civilization to function – taking them away would send us at least 5000 years back.
  4. Post 1960 onwards, production of chemicals and its usage in every sector of human life are pretty strictly regulated by several regulatory authorities.Chemicals used in bulk to manufacture goods, foods, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics are well-characterized and their use is tightly controlled.

Contributions of Chemists

The increased presence of chemists in public spaces and their active participation in chemistry communication will also have a positive effect on the identity of chemists. Chemists, together with the sum of chemical knowledge, are the biggest asset of chemistry.

However, society as a whole is exposed to a fundamental threat too, because chemistry and chemists are essential to its dignified life. The Royal Society of Chemistry says: “People’s views of chemicals do not impact their view of chemistry or chemists. But if chemists talk about chemicals all the time, especially in trying to combat inaccuracies in the views of others – we risk activating existing fears.”

There’s a great appetite for science out there, we shouldn’t assume that people aren’t interested in what chemists get up to and we certainly shouldn’t fear a negative reaction from the public. If we don’t fill the void in public perceptions of chemistry then we run the risk of something – that we don’t control and we don’t like – filling it for us.

References:

  1. There’s no such thing as ‘chemical-free’ food! Video exposes idiotic fad for describing products as being natural or chemical by Victoria Woollaston (07:01 EST, 23 July 2015). Even the Daily Mailcalls it an “idiotic fad” (archived from October 26, 2015)
  2. https://www.rsc.org/news-events/opinions/2015/jul/chemophobia-mark-lorch/
  3. Chalupa R, Nesměrák K. Chemophobia versus the identity of chemists: heroes of chemistry as an effective communication strategy. Monatshefte fur Chemie. :1-9.

#MicrobiologyPlus : The Most Promising Career Path Beyond Medical Education

In Memory of: Prof. Ananda Mohan Chakraborty (1938-2020) 

Dr. Saptarshi Chatterjee, Dr. Sanmitra Ghosh, Dr. Neloy Kumar Chakroborty, Dr. Arijit Bhattacharya, Dr. Arindam Mitra

Introduction: ‘Life’fascinates everyone while many are interested in the ‘Study of Life’. Thus, Biology or Life Science, per se, remains as a preferred subject for many students at the school level. The study of exquisite functioning of cellular machinery to the study of complex organ systems create a deep inquisitiveness of knowing the life forms; be it plants, animals or human. Gradually, the students aspire to take up such studies as their career path. However, a major section of the students gets confined to the conventional options of either becoming a doctor or studying botany, zoology or physiology in a degree course at the graduation level. This article speaks about the domain of microbiology, a field with immense scope, job opportunities and a rewarding career beyond the conventional options.

Before we move on to the career aspects of microbiology, let us read a biography and try to identify the personality.

“The microbiologist was born in Sainthia, Birbhum District of West Bengal, studied at Ramakrishna Mission, Vidyamandir and St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta. His famous contribution was the development of an oil-eating bacterium, Pseudomonas putida; a genetically modified organism that brought laurel to his name. This internationally recognised microbiologist has founded a company (CDG Therapeutics) and was serving as a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Illinois, USA. His name features in every textbookfor his landmark contribution in applications of microbiology.”

He was none other than Prof. Anandamohan Chakraborty.

The current pandemic of COVID-19 has challenged the humanity, especially the scientific community, globally. However, people who took up the challenge and working relentlessly to overcome the situation are health care workers, scientists and researchers. Among them, the role of microbiologists (predominantly the virologists) demands special attention. So, let us first understand Microbiology as a domain of study.

 Microbiology as a Subject: Microbiology is the study of organisms that cannot be seen usually without unaided eyes. The basic components of studying microbiology are the microorganisms, which are microscopic in nature viz. bacteria, virus, algae, fungus, protozoa, prions and viroids. A program in the undergraduate or postgraduate level in microbiology has a blend of basic, applied and advanced aspects to provide an in-depth knowledge of the domain and develop skill sets suited for industries. While the basic subjects like chemistry, biochemistry together with the options of zoology, botany etc. create the fundamentals for studying advanced subjects like molecular biology, biotechnology etc., microbiology is a unique mother subject that offers the opportunity to study specialized applications through the courses, like medical microbiology, agricultural microbiology, industrial microbiology, food and dairy microbiology etc. (Figure 1). Thus most of the colleges and universities are following the model curriculum of ‘Choice Based Credit System (CBCS)’ as prescribed by the University Grants Commission, India, which is a perfect blend of basic and applied microbiology, to give an excellent opportunity to the graduates in excelling their desired career. However, some colleges and universities have further modified their curriculums to suite the demands of various industries.

Figure 1: Various subjects taught in the Microbiology curriculum.

Looking Beyond the Medical Education: Medical entrance examination is one of the toughest selection processes in India and statistically in 2020, approximately 16 lakh applicants would contest for the 70,000 limited medical seats available across the country. Understandably, the major fraction of students cannot secure a seat either in the MBBS or BDS examinations, though surely a healthy proportion of these candidates should achieve bright careers. Therefore, we need to realise that a single examination system neither can be a full-proof yard-stick to measure the ability of the aspirants nor it should decide their fates. Hence rejected applicants, with the common mental state of ‘compromising on aspiration’ need counselling for proper guidance and motivation, which can help them to select the correct alternative subject and become successful professionals in their chosen field. Their aspiration and dreams can take the shape of dedicated researchers working in microbiology and impact millions of lives worldwide by developing novel vaccines or antimicrobials. Therefore, failure to secure a seat in the MBBS or BDS examination may present students to look beyond through the lens of Microbiology and explore its diverse career paths and job opportunities.

Career Path of Microbiology: Microbiology offers a lucrative career path and scope for employability after completion of the graduation (B. Sc.) level. However, the scope increases progressively after successive completion of post-graduation (M.Sc.), Ph.D. and postdoctoral training. Figure 2 illustrates the career paths and options for students in Microbiology.

Lateral and Vertical Mobility: Studying microbiology in the graduation level opens up a lot of scope for moving towards higher education both in microbiology and in allied disciplines, such as Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, and even others like Management (MBA) etc. Therefore, having a basic degree as B. Sc. in microbiology can benefit immensely in moving up the ladder and migrating to other branches of life science or other fields of studies. 

Job Prospects in Microbiology: Among the domains of biological sciences, microbiology stands apart and well ahead in providing job opportunities to the students at various levels (Figure 3). This is because of the fundamental nature of the subject, with blended advanced curriculum containing knowledge from the specialized and applied domains. Unlike Biotechnology, which being a non-mother subject is an amalgamation of knowledge from different mother subjects, microbiology provides the specialized knowledge and skill sets required by the employers across the global. An important example is that microbiologists comprise an important part of the quality management system (QMS) of various industries to fulfil the mandatory and regulatory compliance.

Job descriptions of Microbiologists in selected domains are discussed below:

  1. Quality Control (QC) in Food & Pharmaceutical Industries: Monitoring of raw material or final product quality is an essential aspect of the quality management system. Every food and pharmaceutical industry mandatorily need to recruit microbiologist as the QC officer as per regulatory compliance to look into the microbial aspects of QC to produce products safe for consumption and use. 
  1. Food Safety: ‘Safe food’ is a food devoid of ‘microbial contamination’ so that it does not contain any toxin or pathogens able to cause harm after consumption. Therefore, not only the food industries but also the health regulators, municipalities, local civic bodies recruit microbiologists as food safety officers to judge the quality of food being prepared and sold. It is a part of the public health policy of every government that generates a lot of employability specifically to microbiology students at the graduation or post-graduation level. 
  1. Infection Prevention & Control (IPC): Every hospital and clinical setup requires trained microbiologists as IPC Officer to look into the aspects of preventing infection. They work with the clinicians to efficient disease management. 
  1. Clinical Research Professionals: With emergence of novel pathogens and diseases, clinical complications, drug resistance, there is always a scope for the development of novel formulations as drug. After the successful research outcome in a laboratory, it has to go through stringent procedure of Clinical Trial involving toxicity testing, dosage determination, experiment in animal model and human. Microbiologists have option to work as clinical trial coordinators and pharmacovigilance officers in various clinical trials conducted worldwide. 
  1. Quarantine & Inspection: Foods, animals and even human can act as source or reservoir of causative agents of several diseases. Transport of such from one place to another should be based on norms and free from disease. Therefore, governments employ quarantine officers, who are trained microbiologists capable of carrying out inspection of items, analyse the health, suggest testing and recommend actions of quarantine. 
  1. Researchers (Basic): Joining research program after post-graduation is a lucrative option that has significant scope of earning as well as obtaining higher degree, contributing to human welfare through research. Positions like Junior Research Fellow (JRF) and Senior Research Fellow (SRF) offered by research institutes and universities based on research funding from Department of Science & Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), University Grants Commission (UGC) etc. 
  1. Laboratory Technicians: Modern science depends on the sophisticated instrumentation and thus requires specific skill-sets for conducting experiments and handling of such equipment like PCR, HPLC, GC, AAS, FACS, RT-PCR, Confocal Microscopy, Electron Microscopy (TEM/SEM) etc. Microbiologists, as trained professional are suitable to use such instruments and work on BSL-I to BSL-IV lab maintaining guidelines and taking protective measures. Several diagnostic labs conduct basic microbiology and molecular testing and recruit microbiologists. 
  1. Scientists: To know the unknown and creation of new has always fascinated the best minds in science. Therefore, the option of being a scientist and carry out independent research in an industry or govt. research institute is always opens to microbiologists. They are free to select any particular domain of biological sciences in carrying out cutting-edge research utilizing state-of-art laboratories at various organizations. Collaboration between multiple institutes provides them the scope to serve mankind in the form of finding solution to the most relevant problem of the day. 
  1. Production involving Fermentation: Distilleries and beverage industries use microorganisms for the process involving fermentation to obtain products like alcoholic beverage, enzymes and others. These productions require steps like strain improvement, culture maintenance, inoculum preparation, product recovery etc. generating huge scope of employment for microbiologists. 
  1. Agro-product development: Because of the adverse effect of chemical fertilizers on soil, food products and environment, the focus of today’s agriculture is on bio-fertilizers. Most of them are live microorganisms packed for field applications. Therefore, productions of these bacterial or fungal strains require trained microbiologists, thereby enhancing job opportunities in the agricultural sector. 
  1. Wastewater Management: Several industries and municipal authorities require wastewater treatment to be done before releasing it to the environmental bodies. Similarly, effluent treatment in modern days is carried out utilizing the potential of microorganisms to detoxify hazardous chemicals as well as to breakdown materials into simpler forms. Microbiologists are recruited to maintain the process as well as microbial monitoring. 
  1. Faculty Position: Teaching is a preferred profession due to its noble nature and ability to contribute towards societal development. Microbiology offers prominent opportunity to take up employment opportunity at School, college and university level. While PG degree with B.Ed. is essential for the position of Assistant Teacher, a Ph.D. followed by post-doctoral experience is desired for positions of Assistant Professor in colleges and universities. 
  1. Scientific Content Writing: With the advent of digital era, development of content became crucial and opened up scope for employment. Several organizations employ personnel having sound technical knowledge on domain as content writers. Facility of work-from-home and part-time involvement has attracted a lot of microbiology students to take it up as career option. 
  1. IPR: Securing the intellectual property through IPR laws of the country is considered as an important parameter in determining scientific growth of a nation. IPR despite of being a domain of law requires expert from every discipline to understand technical aspects related to innovation in biological sciences. IPR professionals are recruited in private and government sector as professionals. It is increasingly being popular among present days student. 
  1. Business Development: Modern business development and marketing demands the understanding of commodity in technical terms and ability to troubleshoot in real time rather than conventional sales strategies. Therefore, huge number of scientific products from medicine to instruments has a wide market to be captured by people knowledgeable in the domain along with appropriate skills. This is another broad scope of employment generation among microbiology students. 
  1. Entrepreneurs: The present generation has raised their level of thought in establishing their own enterprise as start-ups, despite of job offers. Their intention to make self-reliant India is well supported by governments, banking sector and others. Own start-up employing technology-based business has great potential in the days ahead and ignited the best minds to think beyond jobs in their domain. Several examples exist from agricultural products to pharmacy where microbiologists are successful in their endeavour. 
  1. Government Services: Apart from the teaching, research and technical services of the government, microbiologists can also aspire to take up civil service examinations of state and central government. Moreover, the option of joining as school teacher also remains open once, students aspire so. 

Future Scope:

The occurrence of back-to-back viral epidemics and the current global pandemic has at least made the scenario clear to the world that we need numerous numbers of research scientists in the field of animal and veterinary virology. This urgent requirement can be best fulfilled by training the potential candidates with an academic background in Microbiology.

#EconomicsPlus: Covid -19 – Money, No Money or Digital Money

Pertains to the following courses

  • Monetary Economics in M.A. (Public Policy) Programme
  • Financial Institutions and Regulatory Systems in M.Sc. (Quantitative Finance) Programme
  • Financial Institutions and Markets in M.Sc. (Economics) Programme with specialization in Banking and Finance

In the emerging economies COVID19 caused escalation in poverty-incident because of job-loss on the one hand and one other hand accretion of disposable cash coupled with erosion of purchasing power attributed to both of lesser opportunity to spend and lower return on investments caused by suspended real production. This means on the one hand the blue collar workers and small scale entrepreneurs are suffering from crunch in inflow of money and on the other hand a relatively sizeable chunk of workers of gold, white and open collars, and middle and large scale entrepreneurs are finding money less and less useful because of inflated prices of the small size of production of necessities permitted by the governments pari passue with shrunk interest earnings. Here arises the issue of peoples’ faith on money.

Money is a part and parcel of our daily life. It is a medium of exchange/payment, measure of value, store of value and so on. It is also considered as a good to buy and sell in the market but unlike other goods the charter of supplying money is vested with a single or few agents permitted by the monetary authority or government. As a medium of payment money is connected to the price level and as a store of value, money commands a price called interest rate. In the interest of smooth macroeconomic management the monetary authority frames and implements certain policies called monetary policy involving changes in money supply that has repercussion on price levels and changes in certain interest rates that has repercussions on investments and real productive activities and changes in exchange rates between the home currency and the reference currencies.

In a globalized economy money to a layman means generally fiat money backed by the sovereign. The faith of the public on money is largely because of the sovereign charter and the efficacy of the institutional mechanism governing (i) creation, use and channels of flow of money, (ii) balance between inflation and unemployment in the domestic economy and (iii) exchange rates and balance of payments in the external sector. Though the monetary literature has grown out of the contributions starting from the field of political economy since Plato’s time till today by a host of other disciplines including banking, finance and institutional economics, this growth could not save the first word from hyper inflation and the third world from hunger and famines.

Chaos and catastrophes in the regulated monetary system as witnessed in USA and East Asia in last two decades and hyperinflations in government money in Germany in 1923, Greece in 1944, Hungary in 1946, Zimbabwe in 2008 etc portrayed a shade of suspicion about the success of government money as an asset. This suspicion combined with various restrictions imposed by central banks on select activities like gambling, money laundering, tax evasion etc through mandatory KYC (know your customer) or similar norms for banks worldwide gave rise to search for some alternative to government money. The result of the search is the birth of digital currency. Digital currency is an internet-based medium of exchange for goods and services. Such transactions occur on the internet instantaneously and allow borderless transfer of ownership. There is no currency conversion from one nation to another. The digital currency can be defined as entries in a database that can be changed only after certain verified transactions. Money in one’s bank account represents a verified entry in a database of accounts, balances and transactions. Through gradual evolution of vocabularies, the terms ‘digital’, ‘virtual’ and ‘crypto’ are used as synonyms. The terms ‘money’, ‘currency’ and ‘cash’ are also used synonymously in this context. It appeared first in the form of bitcoin in 2008. It has become so popular as medium of exchange that there are online platform for shopping using bitcoin.

The fun of crypto currency is that it does not need a supplier central bank and there is an upper cap on the supply of a crypto currency imposed by technological constraints. As a result, the interest rate will increase as demand will increase but the success of bitcoin bond launched on the Bloomberg platform during this July 2019 is yet to be seen. There are multiple suppliers of private digital money – bitcoin, ethereum, XRP etc are among the popular. Secondly, the technological character of crypto currency is that a unit of crypto currency cannot be spent two times, i.e. the transaction velocity of crypto currency is unity only. Thirdly, inflation of crypto currency cannot be controlled by the conventional monetary policy by targeting interest rate or otherwise in absence of a central bank. Though no government has attached any official status to crypto currency, yet bit coin futures are traded in leading international exchange houses like Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

The pandemic is likely to escalate the popularity of crypto currency among those who can access the digital currency market because of public fear of handling cash and coins and visiting banks and ATMs (automatic teller machines) and the opportunity to earn interest through a digital currency market. The same may not be true in an emerging economy because a sizeable population is not financially included nor does everybody financially included possess computer and computer-literacy but launching of crypto currency will surely spell away the opportunities for rent seeking, illegal payments and siphoning away funds targeting the public welfare in a developing economy because a crypto coin can’t be spent more than once. So a monetary authority may experiment launching an official crypto currency without dismantling outright the extant money at the initial stage in the form of medium of exchange and payments only, but not as an investment product. However this measure may widen the gap between the privileged and under-privileged in terms of access to technologically advanced payment systems.

A funny guess is that, if one is not comfortable with sliding USD in the real market as depicted above, then lending USD against any crypto currency like BTC is also not profitable because excess supply of USD will virtually pull down interest rate in this insecure loanable fund market. Acceptance of a crypto currency is backed by certain community’s faith but not any real asset. Be aware of hacking of $400,000 worth XLM coins and $534 million worth NEM coins and beware!

POST COVID START-UP ECOSYSTEM IN INDIA

These trying times have motivated most of us to dig deep to discover new ideas while developing, and assessing opportunities. The Post-Covid job market is witnessing transformations at all levels. These are the days when skill at discovering new ideas, and delivering them, has become one of the most important practical job skills. “How a good idea can become a viable business opportunity?” – People are exploring an innovative dimension of entrepreneurship based out of wide variety of environments, be it small businesses to social enterprises or may be large corporations. Majority focuses on to choose ideas having the best potential for success and create opportunities. To create something of your own is the real motive. Here I remember the famous quote saying “Be a job creator rather than being a job seeker!” and today in reality people are trying out ways to follow these lines.

Starting an enterprise might be really doubtful by nature, but yes! There are analytical ways to follow which can definitely increase certainty and decrease some risk. A pivotal process for budding Entrepreneurs is to appraise potential opportunities while using thoughtful processes to decide on and choose opportunities which can be better positioned for growth. The key pillars of a successful transformation of idea to start-ups lie in

  • Conception
  • Design
  • Organization
  • Management

Technology entrepreneurship and impact entrepreneurship are the factors which must align creating a platform where both diverge to draw a clear vision of opportunities to create a small enterprise. In addition, learning how to create a repeatable and scalable business model is sought from aspiring Entrepreneurs. To talk about recent scenario, the COVID-19 epidemic has made many people want to understand the science behind pressing questions like: “How many people have been infected?” “How do we measure who is infected?” and these queries have initiated the formation of various small to medium scale start-ups. Be Bound India Pvt. Ltd., Faclon labs Pvt. Ltd., Ayu Devices Pvt. Ltd., Pulse Active Stations Network are to name a very few amongst various Start-ups in India who are successfully answering the questions while offering solutions. In a nut-shell a successful venture creation is all about learning to utilize proven techniques while identifying the prospect, assessing the occasion, hypothesis testing and finally creating a prototype.

Idea to Venture

Launching the Start-up, requires practical, real-world knowledge about the lean approach, the minimum viable product (MVP), the exact time to pivot, when to quit your day job, master the art of the pitching, building and managing a team, equity allocation, and building your external team, advisory board members, professional services, and entrepreneurial strategy. India since ages has provided a fertile land for self growth in terms of production of goods and creation of services.  To boost-up the entire start-up ecosystem Govt. of India has floated various schemes over the past few years which further geared up with the launch of Startup India Action Plan on January 16, 2016, by Hon’ble PM Narendra Modi. In 2020 a very close to 28000 start-ups, has been recognized by The Department for the Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). Post Covid situation has opened up a wide platform for creation of ventures on a no. of technical themes like development of Crowd management apps, Covid-19 detection kits, non invasive tests for various diseases, PPE-Kits production, etc. Idea to start-up creation is a really long journey which includes a no. of factors most important being the funding. Govt. of India under various different Ministries has been providing aid to potential start-ups which may seek help from a wide variety of financing options ultimately paving the path to prosperity, but how do you know where to choose from?

Govt. Funding Schemes:

Funding Agency

Scheme

Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY)

Support for International Patent Protection in Electronics & Information Technology (SIP-EIT)

Multiplier Grants Scheme (MGS)

Electronic Development Fund (EDF) Policy

Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (M-SIPS)

Scheme to Support IPR Awareness Seminars/Workshops in E&IT Sector

National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC)

Performance & Credit Rating Scheme

Raw Material Assistance

Single Point Registration Scheme (SPRS)

Infrastructure Development Scheme

Bank Credit Facilitation Scheme

Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA)

National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) Refinance

IREDA Scheme For Discounting Energy Bills

Bridge Loan Against Generation-Based Incentive (GBI) Claims

Loan for Rooftop Solar PV Power Projects

Credit Enhancement Guarantee Scheme

Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)

Industry Relevant R&D

Assistance to Professional Bodies & Seminars/Symposia

Ayurvedic Biology Program

High Risk-High Reward Research

Technology Development Programme (TDP)

Extra Mural Research Funding

Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)

Stand Up India

Sustainable Finance Scheme

SIDBI Make in India Soft Loan Fund for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (SMILE)

Startup assistance Scheme

Growth Capital and Equity Assistance

4E (End to End Energy Efficiency)

Department of Heavy Industries (DHI)

Enhancement of Competitiveness in the Indian Capital Goods Sector

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)

Atal Incubation Centres (AIC)

Atal Tinkering Laboratories

These are just a few to name scheme by Govt. of India. Gone are the days of waiting with bated breath for start of funding, whatever theme you are working upon or whatsoever technology there’s always a scheme of getting funded. Start–up India (https://www.startupindia.gov.in/content/sih/en/home-page.html) offers it all that you will ever look for. Remember Start-ups are designed to grow quickly, but successful start-ups with right timing and knowledge grow real smarter and faster!

 

#EnergyNext: Thermoelectricity at molecular junctions, breakthrough in Nanoscience!

Why Thermoelectricity?

Fig 1. : Schematic illustration thermoelectric effects at molecular junction

(Figure taken from https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201904534)

It has been reported in recent studies that almost two third of the energy generated by conventional power stations is lost as waste heat. What if we can reuse the wasted heat and convert it into usable electricity? Wouldn’t that be great? Here comes the idea of Thermoelectricity. During the past few decades as a measure against global warming, significance of recovering waste heat and converting it to electrical energy has been re-recognized as a major challenge to both science and technology while addressing the global energy crisis. Though there are various methods to recycle waste heat, much attention is being paid to ‘Thermo-Electric (TE) Energy conversion’ because of the ‘Green’ nature of conversion process (i.e., harvesting power from waste heat) and easy device maintenance due to absence of moving mechanical parts, making it technologically intriguing. Thermoelectric devices can convert heat energy directly into usable electrical energy without having any heavy moving parts like turbines, just by exploiting a temperature gradient across them.

Seebeck and Peltier Effects

Fig.2: Schematic Illustration of Seebeck effect where thermal gradient induces a voltage drop at the two junctions.

First thermoelectric effect, also known as Seebeck effect, was discovered way back in 1822 by Seebeck, where a voltage drop is induced across the junctions of two different metals kept at different temperatures. Thus, heat energy is being converted into electrical energy in this process. If  is the amount of heat generated due to  temperature difference, the Seebeck co-efficient is defined by the their ratio, i.e.,S=

Twelve years later in 1834, Peltier observed that the temperature changes at the junctions of two different metals when an electric current is passed through it. If  amount of heat is generated or absorbed due to current  flowing through a metallic branch, then these two factors are related as , where ᴨ being the Peltier co-efficient.

Fig.3.: Schematic illustration of Peltier effect where thermal gradient is being developed due to current flowing through a circuit.

Soon after this discovery in 1838 Lenz performed a simple experiment which had a great impact on technological applications of thermo-electric effect. He put a water droplet at each of the two junctions of a bismuth-antimony closed loop and passed an electric current through the system. One water droplet then freezes into ice while the other remains in the form of water. By reversing the direction of the current flowing through the loop, the ice at one junction melts into water and the water droplet at the other junction freezes into ice. This experiment indicated that the thermo-electric effect can be used for both power generation and refrigeration.

Fig.4 : Schematic diagram of a thermo-electric power generator.

Now, if a thermoelectric material is connected to two different heat baths maintaining their temperature at Th (temperature of the hot junction) and Tc (temperature of the cold junction), then from thermodynamic argument it can be shown that the efficiency of thermo-electric power generation can be shown to be dependent on a quantity named Figure of Merit (ZT) . T is the equilibrium temperature and defined as T = (Tc + Th ) / 2.

 What is Figure of Merit?

The parameter ZT (a dimensionless quantity) is called the Figure of Merit (FOM), which plays the crucial role in determining the quality of the thermoelectric material used. If the value of ZT is increased, the thermoelectric efficiency approaches the ideal Carnot cycle efficiency. It is defined as, ZT = GS2T/k. Here,  and k are the electrical and thermal conductances of the material respectively.  being the Seebeck co-efficient or thermopower of the thermoelectric material used. The thermal conductance includes both electronic and phononic contributions.

Evolution since inception:

In the beginning metals were obviously the first choice before the widespread usage of semi-conductors for applying these ideas in technology. But for metals the value of  was found to be much less than unity for all temperatures. So, then the attention got shifted to bulk semiconductors.

Lots of thermo-electric materials have been studied till date (including Bi2Te3, Mn-Si, Bi-Sb-Te-Se, etc.). But in most cases  at room temperature. For bulk samples it has not been possible to increase  much, which was also the theoretical prediction. The fact is that  can be increased for a bulk thermo-electric materials by changing the carrier concentration by doping, but that still has a limitation as G and S changes in opposite senses as carrier concentration gets changed in case of bulk materials. Therefore, to increase  low thermal conductance and at the same time enhanced and G is preferred. To obtain low thermal conductance quantum confinement is an way out. So, people started to think about using quantum wires and molecular junctions which are even smaller in sizes than regular quantum wires as prospective thermoelectric materials.

Molecules as efficient functional Thermoelectric elements:

While discussing the concept of thermo power in nano-scale junctions the main focus is given on organic molecules or self-assembled mono layers trapped between two macroscopic electrodes, but one can also consider a quantum dot (QD), nanotube, different non-trivial topological systems etc., in place of the molecular systems. Such low-dimensional nano-structured systems can have crucial significance as a room-temperature thermoelectric.

The availability, low-dimensionality and low thermal conductivity make the molecular systems a natural choice for next generation thermoelectric materials with enhanced . As molecules are automatically nano-structured and their electrical conductance ( ) and Seebeck co-efficient  can be tuned externally by applying a gate voltage or with other parameters, so they can be chosen as potential candidates for efficient and high power thermo-electric devices.

Very few experiments have been performed so far on molecular junctions for measuring thermopower. Among them in 2007, an article in Science told that the Seebeck co-efficient and the conductance can be increased simultaneously by applying a gate voltage i.e., by shifting equilibrium Fermi level  closer to the resonance peak. It strongly suggests that much higher figure of merit can be achieved in molecular systems.

Thermoelectricity and DNA

Naturally, the next challenge is to find which molecule and/or the material junction leads to the best and experimentally achievable thermoelectric properties.

DNA, the basic building block of our genetic code may exhibit large potential for application in nanotechnology. Proliferation of DNA sequencing may have a deep impact on clinical medicine, health care and criminal research. Therefore attention is also being paid for non-invasive detection of nucleotides along DNA strands, apart from the conventional Sanger sequencing method. Measuring transverse tunnel currents through a single stranded DNA as it translocates through a nanopore has been proposed as a suitable physical method for single base resolution, and it has also been shown experimentally that the four bases provide a distinguishable transverse electronic feature when measured with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) which directly detects the molecular levels of single DNA bases.

In 2011, a remarkable experiment was reported again in Science, where spin selective transmission were studied through self-assembled monolayers of double stranded DNA which provided high degree of spin polarization. Immediately after that, it was theoretically explained that in presence of spin-orbit coupling, dephasing and helical symmetry this kind of topology is quite capable of producing spontaneous spin polarization even in a two-terminal system, which makes this discovery an absolute breakthrough as it encompasses several possibilities of designing higher  functional elements using artificially synthesized DNA molecules which is the future of molecular electronics.

Let me end with a Quote by Nikola Tesla “What One Man Calls God, Another Calls the Laws of Physics”. So the journey of a physicist is through an infinite path of truth, to be one step closer to nature.

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