TREND Setter Program

Background

As per the charter of the consortium, a fair portion of the membership funding is intended for exploratory and collaborative research that enables the Energy Consortium to become one of the key technology hubs. The TREND SETTER program aims to identify a few areas aligned with the long-range research initiatives of the industry and build capability within the consortium.

The Energy Consortium invites a team of faculty members to submit a crisp proposal aimed towards Exploratory R&D and Fundamental research that enables breakthrough innovation. It is anticipated the work done through this grant will enable the faculty teams to develop follow-on larger proposals for external funding. Industry and institutional partners can be identified and enabled by the consortium.

Some of the areas of interest include the following:
  1. Novel and energy efficient ammonia production process
  2. Combustion studies on hydrogen and its derivatives, Hydrogen carriers, etc. 
  3. Nature based solutions
  4. Handling CO2: Methods and materials for CO2 including but not limited to direct use of Flue gas for CO2 capture, Integrated CCUS, Wet vs Dry carbonation  proof of concept 
  5. Solutions for energy efficiency enhancement of RE in to the energy mix including battery storage solution and other elements of scalable micro-grids
  6. New materials for next generation batteries; 
  7. CO2 footprint modelling that can be applied to various manufacturing processes; 
  8. Energy Economics, Systems Modelling, Scenario and Climate change evaluation, LCA Analysis
  9. Biomass conversions; Electric boilers

The above are not limited and can be any topic that can utilise the existing facilities and infrastructure available at the institute. 

Award Grants 2023

Founding Members & Consortium Faculty at Industry Day June 30, 2023
Prof Kothandaraman and Prof Rajnish Kumar
Prof Raghuram Chetty, Prof Aravind kumar Chandiran and Prof Rajnish Kumar
Prof Santosh kumar Sahu and Ajay Patil,
Cummins India
Prof Arun Karuppaswamy and Raghunathan Swaminathan, FLSmidth
Prof Pravendra kumar and Dr Marwa Al-Ansary
Prof Nitin Muralidharan and Dr Hemant Aiyer, Aditya Birla
Prof Swapna Singha Rabha, Prof Himanshu Goyal and Prof Niket Kaisare
Guidelines
  • Equipment spends to be minimal and leverage existing facilities in the institute. Operational expenses and any add-on for enhancements can be considered on a case to case basis
  • High Risk High Reward Track (Track 1): Collective submission will be supported up to 1 Crore (1 project)
    • PIs from multiple departments with meaningful contributions to the outcome of the project
    • Two or more founding members to endorse the proposed outcomes and the intended benefits, with optional co-funding
  • Early Career Track (Track 2): Open to all early career faculty members (AP and ASP, up to 10 Years at IITM, 5 projects 10 Lakhs from the EC and potentially joint funding from any founding members)
    • Seed grant to work on new problem statements that leverage on interests from Industry member request
    • Develop deeper collaboration with founding members of the consortium
    • Human resources and consumable funding, that can leverage existing facilities and projects within the institute

Assessment panel: 

  1. IITM Panel: Faculty-in-charge and experts identified by the EC faculty 
  2. Founding industry member representatives 

Please note: The individual comments from representatives from founding members will be considered for final evaluation. Decisions from the IITM Panel will be final.