Akshat Jiwan Sharma

At the international hardware fair I had the chance to interact with 180+ exhibitors from 30 different countries showcasing their tools from screws to hammers,chainsaws and cutters.  Hardware tools are an often neglected part of materials engineering and yet they play a significant role in their processing. Today the majority of tools are either operated electrically or using fuels like gasoline.  Yet there is a new class of tools that holds promise in materials processing— pneumatic systems use compressed air to perform useful work. At 20% efficiency (about the same as solar cells) they provide a low cost,lightweight, high power alternative to electrical or chemical fuel based machines.  The advantage being that they require no copper,no battery, no electrical connections,no burners. Heat generation? negligible.  The overall system efficiencies can be much higher at 40-60% with waste heat recovery during compression that can be used in industrial drying...

11 Dec 2025 I thank the International Atomic Energy Agency and the US Department of Energy for organising public talks[1-2] on the challenges facing fusion and what the scientific community is doing to overcome them.  Tritium availability, with total global reserves estimated to be only about 25-30kg [6], is one of the most pressing issues. If fusion is to be self-sustaining then techniques would have to be developed to generate enough tritium that could enable fusion to work. Researchers have identified neutron activation of Lithium as the most promising route but breeding it at a kg scale is no easy task.  Li is a scarce resource[7-8]. Breeder reactors need a special radioactive isotope which is found in even lesser quantities (estimates suggest 7% of total Li). For viable tritium production it's estimated that a fusion reactor would need tens of tonnes of Li6. Consumption ~ 50 kg per year [9-11]. The energy generated would justify high usage, if challenges associated with b...

9 Dec 2025 I thank CSIS and Japan External Trade Organization for the wonderful discussion on USA-Japan economic relations and the importance of the partnership to maintain the stability in the Indo- Pacific.  As both nations are a part of the quadrilateral security dialogue it came as no surprise that the discussion gravitated towards strengthening of supply chains especially for critical minerals that are essential to sectors including electronics,clean energy and defense.  It is no secret[1-3] that the technology transfers from the USA have built valuable, immensely wealthy electronics industries of south east Asia. The so-called Asian tiger economies are essentially seeded by USA tech. While the offshoring created immense wealth for Asian economies these decisions were not always welcome back at home in the USA. The policies aimed at reshoring that have been the defining trait of Trump presidencies stems from the discontent that many American manufacturers feel in competi...

I thank the combustion institute for organising a talk on Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) discussing in detail their composition and their climate impact.  Nearly 300 million tonnes of fuels are used by airlines which is a small percentage of nearly 4 Billion tonnes of global annual fuel consumption by the entire transportation sector.  Although the exact figures are hard to obtain, some estimates suggest around 210 Billion tonnes(.14 tonne per barrel x1.5 Trillion barrels) of oil are recoverable as per our current capacity [1]. At the current rate of use all available oil will be exhausted in about 50 years if no new discovery is made.  But new discoveries are continuously made & it is possible more discoveries are made that would add to the list of about 100 or so countries that have proven oil reserves or are already extracting.  It is quite reasonable to assume that easily recoverable oil has already been tapped and further extraction is going to be more dif...

I thank the University of British Columbia Faculty of forestry for organising The Third International Young Scientist Forum for Climate Change with the theme of Sustainable Development through Bamboo Resources. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to learn so much from the bright materials scientists working hard to make lignocellulose a viable alternative in structural and functional applications that goes beyond just laminated wood .  INBAR’s successful promotion of bamboo in Asia as well as in Africa and parts of EU has positioned bamboo as one of the most valuable biomaterials that can help achieve sustainability goals while providing a source of income to rural communities.  Bamboo has proven itself as a highly flexible material that can not only help uplift communities by enabling them to build handmade products like window blinders but also technical products such as fibers and reinforced plastics.  As a rich source of lignocellulose bamboo has immense potentia...

Attending the webinar on Decarbonising the European Glass Industry provided me an opportunity to connect with researchers working hard to make glass production more sustainable.  Glass is one of the most important materials that enables several critical technologies powering the world. Fiber optic cables,displays, scientific equipment,lenses and of course windows. Every year nearly 150 million tonnes of glass is made. Therefore it is essential that we find ways to produce glass in a more eco-friendly way. The European Innovation council has been leading the effort in this space by funding research projects like H2 glass, Everglass and GIFFT in collaboration with industrial partners like Schott,PlasmaAir and several universities throughout the region.   One strategy is to reuse and recycle existing glass. Here innovations like localised melting with lasers are making the process cheaper as compared to full melt processing but concerns about gathering waste glass remains. ...