Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Gopalakrishnan's device wins Asian Innovation Award

Shobha Warrier in Chennai

With most vehicles in India being diesel-driven, pollution levels in Indian cities and towns are assuming unmanageable proportions. However, here's a man who may yet have a solution to this problem: for just Rs 4,950.

In June 1996,
S Gopalakrishnan, a mechanical engineer and small-scale industrialist, embarked upon a project to control diesel pollution. "Unless you control diesel pollution, you cannot control pollution in the country," he says. And what was born was a electronic catalytic convertor worth taking serious note of.

Serious enough to win Gopalakrishnan the gold medal at the Asian Innovation Awards.

It was not a catalytic converter in the exhaust system that Gopalakrishnan had in mind for a diesel engine. Gopalakrishnan wanted a system that would clean the fuel on board the vehicle itself on the intake side of the engine, unlike the catalytic converters that oxidize carbon monoxide and reduce nitrogen oxides from the exhaust.

While catalytic converters are effective only if you use unleaded petrol, the Electronic Catalytic Converter designed by Gopalakrishnan's small scale unit, Hydrodrive Systems and Controls Pvt Ltd works on all vehicles from auto rickshaws with two stroke engines to cars, lorries and buses, irrespective of the fuel that the vehicle uses (petrol, diesel or LPG).

It was at a time when many vehicle manufacturers were switching over from carburetors to multi point fuel injunction systems when he set out to design his device. As the research progressed, he found that Indian fuels have a lot of sulphur content, and they were nowhere near the Euro or international standards.

After an analysis in 1997, he found that the refining industry would have to spend Rs 350 billion for changes to reduce the sulphur content in diesel produced by them. Only Reliance Petroleum and two other government companies supply low sulphur diesel even today, and it would now need at least Rs 100-150 billion to start a refinery to produce low sulphur diesel.

Gopalkrishnan came to the conclusion that use of microwaves, which are extensively used as a catalyst in the petrochemical industry, was the best idea to process the fuel. The Electronic Catalytic Converter is a metallic cylinder with a fuel inlet and outlet with two wires to connect to the ignition. Microwaves are generated inside the device. The device converts the fuel into a more easily burnable one.

Though the reason for developing the electronic catalytic converter was to reduce pollution, tests show that mileage of vehicles using the converter increases by 15-20 per cent and performance of the engine also improves.

Some reports also show enhanced torque availability. All test reports show almost nil emission of carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen in the exhaust of engines and particle emission comes down by 60 per cent. If fitted with their own new exhaust system, which is undergoing trial now, a diesel engine of even the buses, straightaway can achieve Euro-4, claims Gopalakrishnan.

"In petrol driven vehicles, the converter converts a carburetor engine to Euro-2, and the Euro-2 engines become Euro-3," says Gopalakrishnan.

He supplied the electronic catalytic converter that he developed free of cost to many of his friends who are engineers and in the automobile field, so as to get a good feed back. Despite efforts, manufacturers of various vehicles and state run transport corporations never responded to his invention.

Some of the other inventions of Gopalakrishnan's Hydrodrive are the solar panel on fibre glass instead of aluminum thus saving 50 per cent of energy, fluid couplings for textile mills that could save power by 20 per cent and of course, the most prestigious design, a device that is still in use at Sriharikotta - the swing door mechanism drive, which can tilt and position rockets before the launch of the rocket.

Unfortunately, Gopalkrishnan is among the many inventors and path breakers to have fallen prey to Indian red tapism. Even his application for a patent for the product, which has been submitted in the year 1996 itself, lies buried in the huge piles of files in a government office. Five years have passed, but the Patents Department is yet to review his application.

Although he has received a lot of export enquiries from countries like Germany, Turkey, etc, Gopalkrishnan says he couldn't proceed because the Patents Department hadn't cleared his application.

"It has not happened to me alone, it is there in every field. Have you seen any inventor being benefited during his lifetime?" says Gopalakrishnan sans disappointment.

"Of course, I am happy that my work and product are recognised. An award gives you a moment of happiness, but real joy is when people are benefited from your invention. I thank the Far Eastern Economic Review for conferring the award on me because after all the suppression, indifference and opposition that was inflicted upon me here, someone outside the country has recognised my efforts. I console myself that this kind of indifference is there in every country. And that this award will open the eyes of at least some people."

Photograph by Sanjay Ghosh

Money
Business News

Tell us what you think of this report