Atheeq MD (REC, Hulkoti)

 

“Keep moving forward regardless of any hurdles that come in your way.”

Most students have a lot of ability, but they are rarely given the opportunity to tap into it.  I used to consider myself to be a part of this group of untapped potential.  Hailing from Raichur, an area in deep need of progressivism, I have taken advantage of my LEAD platform to combine my passion for chemical engineering with my concern for society.  Now entering my third year in LEAD, I have completed four projects so far, three of them being of a technical nature.

Recycling of Waste Chalk

I noticed that a lot of chalk was being wasted at my college.  When chalk pieces became so worn down and so small that they could no longer be gripped by the human hand, they would be thrown out.  I contemplated this situation and realized that these small pieces of “waste” chalk, when put together, could create additional pieces of chalk, thereby saving schools and colleges precious money.   Through the simple process of combining chalk dust with water, I devised a method to recycle chalk.  After his method was proved to be successful, it was implemented at my own college as well as a government school in Raichur.    

Maglev Generator

While this project is still in progress, my Maglev Generator serves as a more affordable innovation from existing generators.  I first came up with the idea for his Maglev Generator after seeing a generator with a tightly wound rotor, which required more energy to produce power due to the existence of more friction. This problem inspired me to create a frictionless rotor.  The Maglev Generator relies on the concept of magnetic levitation, which is being mostly used to propel high-speed trains in countries like Japan and Germany.   My generator requires less energy and produces more power than normal generators. 

Plastic to Crude Oil

I, like many others, had been observing the plastic crisis for a while.  Plastics are a huge threat since they are not biodegradable.  Many solutions to rid our planet of deadly plastics have started to take form, but most of these solutions are still not affordable enough to be adopted.  With my device, plastic can be burned and converted into crude oil, an unrefined petroleum product which can later be refined to produce useful products such as gasoline, diesel and more.  Essentially, hot air is fed into a process vessel.  This air is continually recycled in a loop to maximize heat loss.  The process vessel is isolated from oxygen and is exposed to a vacuum environment.  This energy is used to depolymerize the plastic into crude oil.  My method is more affordable than others because it relies on charcoal to catalyze the process, whereas other models do not rely on any catalysts.  I am still working on my model to make it more cost effective. 

  

Although I faced many challenges in his projects, overcoming these challenges have presented me with great learning experiences.  Joining LEAD not only gave me the opportunity to express  talent and knowledge, it also gave me the courage to defend my own ideas and the ability to convince others of my ideas.  In each of my initiatives, my fellow students made fun of me because I was doing something different.  At one point, the disapproval from my peers made me lose motivation.  Eventually, though, I ignored their negative remarks and continued working on my projects. Now that my projects have been successful, I have the confidence to work on crazier ideas in the future.