Scavenging energy

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Academia urged to focus research on pressing issues, energy harvesting

Energy experts Friday stressed upon the academia to focus its research activities on the issues of pressing national interest to help country come one he sustainable path of development.

The research must be particularly conducting in the field of energy harvesting to help ensure sufficient power supply, they said while speaking at the concluding session of four days workshop on Solar Energy Harvesting at Quaid-i-AzamUniversity.

They highlighted the importance of employing modern techniques and methods to enhance solar energy harvesting to capitalise the benefit of this natural and cost free source of energy to overcome the power crisis in Pakistan.

“By employing the modern techniques and methods we can enhance the efficiency of solar cells to take benefit of this alternate resource of energy,” Dean Faculty of Natural Sciences Prof Dr Qaiser Mushtaq said while presiding over the concluding ceremony. He appreciated the faculty and students of department for organising this event, which he said would encourage students to work in this particular field.

The workshop was organised by QAU chapter of the International Society for Optics and Photonics to look for alternative energy sources and for economization of the energy utilizations.

It had gathered over fifty (50) scholars from various universities and research organisations of the country and abroad to deliberate on the issue, hence providing them an opportunity to share their experiences and knowledge.

Speaking on the occasion, Department of Electronic Chairman Dr Hassan Mehmood said that time has come to focus research on issues of national interest, especially for energy harvesting.

Representative of Electromagnetics Research Group, Dr Aqueel Ashraf said that the aim of the workshop was to train the participants in the field of Surface Multi-Plasmonics and enable them to start work in this particular research area.

Guest speaker Dr M Faryad from Pennsylvania State University, USA also encouraged the participants to utilize modern technique and methods to maximize the benefits of research in this field.

Founding member of the Department of Electronics, Dr Azhar Abbas Rizvi while commenting on the completion of 25 years of Electronic Department said the students are indebted by the society, so they must contribute to the well being of society through their work.

He further said that students must come forward and take up the responsibility that was shouldered for past 25 years by him and his colleagues.

Dr Qaisar Abbas Naqvi said that Pakistan’s scientific community had always been criticized for their research which has very little or no utility for the country, therefore, this trend has seen a quick turnaround as many mainstream scientific research centers, universities have increased their research on Energy Harvesting Technologies and also on devising electronic devices which are energy efficient.

Another expert, Dr Aqueel A Syed said that the subject area of research has a tremendous potential to be a key for solar energy harvesting and also for devising energy efficient electronic devices. He expressed the hope that after sharpening their skills in the field, the participants will be able to design devices to harvest solar energy more efficiently.

Meanwhile, in his opening remarks, Tayyab Malik a member of organising committee said, “Depletion of fossil fuels and absence of alternative energy resources have severely affected the countries like Pakistan. Thus there is an urgent need to look for alternative energy sources and also economise the energy utilisations.”

He said the workshop titled “Surface Multi-Plasmonics: Fundamentals and Applications for Solar Energy Harvesting” was organised by Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) and Department of Electronics of the University with an aim to focus on educating Pakistani students, scholars and scientists  to equip them with necessary skills needed to carry out  research in the field.