Lab

Gopalakrishnan Kumar's Lab (Energy-Sustainability Nexus lab)


About the lab

ESNL lab:

More details can be found here:

https://sites.google.com/view/energy-sustainability-nexus

Featured research (6)

Circular bioeconomy has become a sustainable business model for commercial production that promises to reuse, recycle & recover while considering less environmental footprints in nutraceutical industries. Microalgae biotechnology has the synergy to bioremediate waste stream while generating high-value-added compounds such as astaxanthin, protein and polyunsaturated fatty acids that are potential compounds used in various industries, thus, the integration of this approach provides economic advantages. However, the industrial production of these compounds is costly and affected by unstable climate in the Nordic regions such as low temperature, light intensity, and polar circle have shifted the focus of biosynthesis towards indigenous strains compared with commercial strains that are less tolerant. Nutraceutical productions such as polyunsaturated fatty acids and protein can now be synthesized at low temperatures which significantly improve the industry's economy. In this review, the above-mentioned compounds with potential strains were discussed based on a Nordic region’s perspective.
The main aim of this work was to compare six machine learning (ML) - based models to predict the municipal solid waste (MSW) generation from selected residential areas of Vietnam. The input data include eight variables that cover the economy, demography, consumption and waste generation characteristics of the study area. The model simulation results showed that the urban population, average monthly consumption expenditure, and total retail sales were the most influential variables for MSW generation. Among the ML models, the random forest (RF), and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithms show good predictive ability of the training data (80% of the data), with an R² value > 0.96 and a mean absolute error (MAE) of 121.5–125.0 for the testing data (20% of the data). The developed ML models provided reliable forecasting of the data on MSW generation that will help in the planning, design and implementation of an integrated solid waste management action plan for Vietnam. The limitations of this work may be the heterogeneity of the dataset, such as the lack of data from lower administrative units in the country. In such cases, the predictive ML algorithm can be updated and re-trained in the future when the reliable data is added.
Recently, the quickly growing population living in urban location has caused numerous conflicts related to increase in water demand and water pollution. In urban areas, the surface water bodies allow runoffs and storms and in addition act as wastewater drainage pathways. Mostly, the imperfect separation of rainwater and clean wastewater has made large quantities of wastewater discharged into the surface water, resulting in serious pollution. There are many treatment methods for the polluted water bodies such as coagulation, filtration, and ecological floating bed which are related to nutrient removal. The above listed methods are usually capable in reducing pollution load. Wastewaters generated from two sources such as point source (domestic and industries) and non-point source (agricultural and storm water runoff). Finally it reaches nearby water bodies and the abovementioned methods are to be frequently employed in a wastewater treatment plant to remove nutrients. Most of the pollutants in the vastly polluted water are in dissolved forms; hence, an appropriate treatment method relevant to the design and development of the integrated multistage reactor with extended wastewater treatment is reviewed in this paper. Evaluating the accumulation, precipitation, retention, and removal of phosphorus, along with removal of nitrogen, is discussed in brief.
The potential to operate energy efficient and less expensive production methods are important in biohydrogen production. Biological hydrogen production is often constrained by less productivity. However, to obtain industrial level implementation, greater productivity is essential. Researches on various bioreactors configurations and influencing factors were deeply investigated in this regard. The bioreactors operated in batch mode are appropriate for preliminary optimization whereas industrial level execution needs continuous mode. The main objective of this review is to recap the limitations and constraints associated with bioreactor operation and to list out the enhancement approaches that are currently investigated for improved biohydrogen generation. Recent approaches designed towards biohydrogen production enhancement such as substrate pre-treatments, inhibitors removal, bioaugmentation, immobilization, effluent recycling, buffering capacity maintenance, exploitation of by-products etc., are reviewed thoroughly.

Lab head

Gopalakrishnan Kumar
Department
  • Faculty of Science and Technology
About Gopalakrishnan Kumar
  • Dr.Gopalakrishnan Kumar (Ph D- FCU, Taiwan + post doc-UNAM- Mexico, Daegu University- South Korea, JSPS - NIES, Japan, RP& KRF-Yonsei Uni, SK), heading research groups in UiS, Norway+ YU-South Korea. His major research area includes, Micro/Macroalgae biorefinery technologies, wastewater treatment, Biofuels (H2, Ethanol, CH4) production from LCB/solid waste and WW. Environmental Remediation & green NP synthesis.

Members (4)

Chandrasekhar Kuppam
  • Indian Institute of Chemical Technology
Periyasamy Sivagurunathan
  • IndianOil, R& D centre, Faridabad, India
Thi Ngoc Bao Dung
  • Ton Duc Thang University
Menghour Huy
  • University of Stavanger
Thangavel Mathimani
Thangavel Mathimani
  • Not confirmed yet
Ackmez Mudhoo
Ackmez Mudhoo
  • Not confirmed yet