AluChem India Limited

901 Cumballa Crest
42 Peddar Road
IN-400026 Bombay
INDIA
Tel: +91 22 23524416 Fax: +91 22 23511118

Main Contact
   Shrikrishna BAPAT, CEO
   Email: sbapat[at]aluchem.com

To find organisations with similar interests, click on a keyword below:
Buildings : Cooling : Energy Efficiency : HVAC : Heat/Heating

Although in in India, AluChem India Ltd works with some European and American companies to save energy, mainly in houses. The company has decided to approach the problem in 3 ways. Its study indicated that in cold countries 42% to 46% of energy consumed is either for heating or air conditioning (cooling). AluChem's work in brief is as follows:

1. Energy Efficient Roofing Tiles - This entails extrusion of Polycarbonate in a particular cross section similar to a roofing tile, filling it with Infra Red Reflecting, Low Density Spheres, evacuating the shape and sealing it with Ultrasound techniques. This process will generate a Roofing Tile, which will reflect heat in summer and insulate in winter. The obvious question in anyone's mind would be - 'what is wrong with fibres which are used today for insulation?' The fibres are excellent insulating material and bring down the heating bill for a home owner. But to make the fibres, a large amount of heat is required. Thus the net energy saving is not much. Of course, in some locations it may be necessary to use fibres, but their use can be reduced drastically and in some areas, they can be eliminated completely. These Tiles can be used in other areas like warm water swimming pools etc. Polycarbonate is the toughest polymer and can withstand hard atmospheric conditions like hail storms for a number of years. The Infra Red Reflecting pigments is manufactured by an American company.
2. Infra Red Absorbing Cover - Nano Materials are extremely fine elements or compounds which have a size of less than 1/1000 of a Micron. At this fineness, these materials show completely different properties. It is now a common practice to use glass as exterior material in many building. If this glass is coated with some Nano materials, it shows an interesting property. The sun rays that reach the earth consist of visual light, Infra Red (heat) rays and Ultra Violet rays. Fortunately most of the Ultra Violet rays are blocked by earth's atmosphere as they cause skin cancer. If glass is coated with a grade of Nano Material, it allows only the visual light to pass through but absorbs Infra Red rays which are essentially heat. Thus the heat can't get through such glass but as it absorbs Infra Red, it heats up by up to 15 Deg C. This heat is normally dissipated by outside conditions, such as wind, but AluChem is now working to see if this heat can be harvested so that it can serve some useful purpose. As the heat is blocked from entering a building, the air conditioning use is reduced.
3. Insulating Walls - This concept is not new but unfortunately is not used extensively. In this case the external wall of a building actually consists of two walls separated by a gap of about one inch. This by itself can bring about some insulation, but entrapped air is one of the best insulating materials. For example a glass bubble has entrapped air and can be far more effective as an insulating medium. The problem here is glass beads are expensive, but nature has provided an answer to this. When coal is burnt for say generation of electricity, it leaves behind ash which is called flyash. In this flyash there are extremely fine aluminosilicate granules which are actually glass bubbles. They can be easily separated by putting the flyash in water. The fine glass beads, which are called Cenospheres, float and can be easily collected. The coal available in India is extremely low grade and contains more than 30% flyash, but on the flip side, it also generates large amount of Cenospheres. If the gap in the exterior wall of a building is filled with Cenospheres blended with cement, it becomes far more efficient.

These are the three main ideas AluChem is working on, but as a spin-off, these techniques can be used in many other applications such as Insulating Tiles for warm water swimming pool in winter.

This is a brief picture of AluChem's programme to reduce energy consumption by producing low levels of Green House Gases. If you think there is some thing useful in what it is trying to do, AluChem would welcome your opinion as an authority on the subject, which will give the company a proper direction and enthusiasm to go ahead.

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