Green Energy, Green Engineering and Technology

Olzhas Akhmetsadyk has completed his Graduation at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. He is working as a Head of Medical Devices Testing Laboratory of National Center for Expertise of Medicines and Medical Devices, Ministry of Healthcare of Republic of Kazakhstan. His recent duties as a Medical Devices Regulator are to evaluate the quality management system of manufacturers upon registering their products in Kazakhstan and to assess the quality of the products according to quality specifications. His research interests include synthesis of bio-active (P-, N- and F-) heterocycles, β-cyclodextrin complexes with bio-active substances, NMR and X-ray studies of cyclodextrin complexes, biocompatibility of cyclodextrin complexes and microbial activity of cyclodextrin complexes.

Stimulation of immunity of living organisms (immunocorrection) allows inducing their complex nonspecific resistance to many diseases of fungal, bacterial and viral origin, furthermore to other unfavorable environmental factors. For the purpose of synthetic search of potential immunocorrectors, we have synthesized new α-aminophosphonates based on 1-phenylpiperazine and 1-benzhydrylpiperidine using classical Kabachnik-Fields reaction conditions. Weak sides of the procedure used for their preparation is the reaction time-24 and more hours and as use of benzene. It turned out that microwave radiation, as expected, significantly reduces the reaction time to 15-25 min. To obtain the target α-aminophosphonates, 15 min microwave radiation is most effective using BMIB. The effect of magnesium oxide on the reaction with 1-phenylpiperazine is well noticed. The catalytic activity of oxides of magnesium and zinc on formation of the target α-aminophosphonates under 25 min microwave irradiation is shown. The lower yields of the products of benzhydryl derivatives, both in classical and microwave conditions, can be explained by the steric hindrance created by the benzhydryl group. In addition, microwave radiation lets to exclude use of benzene from the synthesis. The anesthetic properties and toxicity level were studied at National Medicinal University, in Almaty, Kazakhstan. These studies showed that synthesized organics have superior lethal dose concentration, higher anesthesia index and more effective infiltration and conductive anesthesia parameters when compared to known marketed local anesthetics.

Renato N C Sakamoto has completed his Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering, graduate studies in Safety Engineering and a Master degree in Renewable Energy. He has four years of experience in the field of Photovoltaic Generation and Power Distribution Networks.

The search for diversification of energy resources in Brazil has become extremely necessary due to two main factors. The first is the current water situation that the country is going through; with the scarcity of rain the generation situation through hydroelectric power plants was compromised. Since the significant reduction in rainfall, power generation by hydroelectric plants has not been sufficient to supply the demand. Therefore, the need to use thermoelectric power plants has caused the price of energy to increase. Secondly, the exploitation of renewable energy resources that brings more comfort, security, flexibility and sustainability. In this scenario, photovoltaic solar energy presents itself as a technology in constant advance in Brazil and around the world. Through a bibliographical review, this article aims to present the principle of the use of this energy, considering the equipment and materials applied to the system, as well as the efficiency they can achieve. In addition, there is a broader view of the use of sunlight to produce electricity through photovoltaic panels and the applications of this technology in specific situations, such as installation on streetlights. The use of photovoltaic energy is a reality that states increasingly in several countries. In Brazil the manufacturing of photovoltaic systems need to reach an industrial scale to reduce costs, technical conditions and the uncertainty of the extent that this market will reach in the coming years also bring difficulties to final consolidation of solar photovoltaic generation in Brazil. There are several uses for a system that generates electricity through solar modules, as in the battery bank and off and on grid systems.

Hamed Khodayar Sahebi is currently pursuing Mechanical Engineering in Islamic Azad University, Iran. His research focuses on the new type of renewable energy. Recently he has built an experimental model named Buoyancy Energy Machine which on testing resulted to generate renewable and clean energy.

Energy has been one of the basic needs of human for their lives, and this need has existed from the very past till today. We always have been used various methods to supply energy from different sources, but some of these methods have been creating environmental problems, including greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Also on the other hand, limitation of energy sources such as: water resources and fossil fuels, have also led to the use of renewable and clean energies which should be considered and have been used using different methods. But the barriers and problems of using renewable energies include: High costs of manufacturing, production, installation and utilization, High technology and its proper knowledge for using these types of energies is limited to few countries, Always there will be some local and temporal restrictions to these renewable energy sources and will not be available easily. The purpose of this project is to use a new method to produce renewable energy without the use of high-tech manufacturing which will ultimately lead to clean energy production. In the present proposal, it has been considered a new type of renewable energies that has been generated by buoyancy force, and ultimately it transfers to generate energy which is a clean and renewable energy.

Alejandra Rivera is doing her final work in order to obtain her bachelor\'s degree in Chemical Engineering at the Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Ecuador. She is working as a Research Assistant on the project PIJ 15-16 \'Study of the extraction process and characterization of inulin from Ecuadorian tubers by conventional and non-conventional methods\' directed by Lorena Jaramillo.

Cabuya (Agave Americana) is an Andean native plant which has not been much studied, although it has valuable compounds such as inulin, saponins, steroids, terpenes and tannins. Inulin is a storage carbohydrate which belongs to fructans. Due to health benefits, inulin has become widely used in the food industry. Commonly, inulin is extracted using conventional thermal method (CTM) which requires high temperature (70–80 ºC) and extraction time of 1.5-2 h. Novel extraction methods have attracted attention, because they are less energy consuming and more efficient. A remarkable method is pulsed electric fields (PEF), a pretreatment which reduces considerably extraction time and temperatures (20–40ºC), becoming a green process that fits with the sixth principle of green chemistry. This work aimed to extract soluble matter from Ecuadorian cabuya meristem using PEF at several operating conditions. Cabuya meristem was sliced into pieces of 20 x 20 x 3 mm; then two parallel samples were prepared, one with PEF pretreatment and the other without PEF. Immediately, both samples were subjected to extraction by stirring in water. Finally, PEF and CTM extraction times and energy consumption were compared. The results showed that the best PEF pretreatment conditions were 2 cm of electrodes distance, 20% of pulse width, 1 kHz of frequency and an electric field of 2 500 V/cm. When PEF was applied at the best conditions during 1 s at 30ºC, pretreated samples raised the same soluble matter yield than non-pretreated, spending less time and energy. Extraction time reduced from 50 to 20 minutes by applying PEF, and the energy required by PEF extraction method represented 40% of the consumed energy by CTM. Thus, PEF technique has a significant effect on the extraction process efficiency, showing to be promising as green technology to chemical industry process.