Help

[Ashun]

I'm very new in sci. Buddy.
May be this not right place.
I want to ask what are the basic things to do for my National level science project "ENERGY:Exploration, harness & conservation"(I'm from India)
Thanks.

[Ashun]

How smoke from polythene burning or vehicles can be converted into electricity.
Please give me some idea for my Project:Energy & society.

[Ashun]

I need! I need quick reply.

[donnahardy2]

Hi Ashun,

Welcome to Science Buddies!

There are several energy-related project ideas on the Science Buddies website. Please review these and pick a topic that you are interested in investigating further:

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f ... vanced&p=1

You seem to be interested in doing a project on recycled energy, and this would definitely be a unique and challenging project. Here is a general article on this topic.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialse ... -Heat.html

I recommend doing additional background reading by searching on topics like “recycled energy” and “smoke to energy” preferably using for articles that have been published in the scientific literature. This will help narrow your topic down so that you will be able to ask a question that will be answered by your carefully controlled experiment.

The guide for doing a science project on the Science Buddies Website should provide helpful information also:

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f ... ndex.shtml

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Donna Hardy

[John Dreher]

Donna gave good advice when she said "I recommend doing additional background reading by searching on topics like “recycled energy” and “smoke to energy” preferably using for articles that have been published in the scientific literature". A tip for searching is to use Google Scholar to do the web searches -- it searches preferentially for scientific and other scholarly articles. The URL for this search engine is:

scholar.google.com/

Good luck with your project.

[Ashun]

Thank you guys for your kind replies.
I observed project ideas but they seems expensive or too old ideas.
The central theme of the project is how you get energy & what you do it for poor villages of India like country.
In what time I should do it?
I will keep up further problems regarding the project.
Thanks
Ashun

[Goldenzenith]

Hi Ashun,

It's best when choosing projects to make a list of all the ones that seem interesting to you. What I would do is compile ideas from both Science Buddies and Google Scholar using the helpful links provided above by the other Experts. If you've decided that some are too expensive and others are too old, try to consider what parts could be changed in order for them to be more affordable or relevant in today's society.

Also, I'm not sure I quite understand your latest question. Are you asking whether you should do your experiment during the day, the afternoon, etc? That could be one variable to think about!

[Ashun]

Thank u all scholars here!
O.k, how I should collect important datas for my projeat "electricity from polythenes & plastic wastes".(no recycling)
Plz guide me as how I can make my project better.
Thanks
Ashun

[Jacobie09]

I hope Im allowed to say this but LOL, making the topic name 'Help' really gets replies. I might have to try this tactic. Anyway, I don't know about energy but good-luck on your national campaign.

[donnahardy2]

Hi Ashun,

I am not certain what you are planning to do for an experiment.

Petroleum is used to make polyethylene and other types of plastics, and it can be recycled into other products, but it is not clear how it can be used to generate electricity other than to incinerate it to produce heat that can be converted to electrical energy. Is this the process that you want to investigate?


For a science project, you need to ask a question that can be answered by doing a carefully controlled experiment. Here is the basic step-by-step guide for doing a project:

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f ... ndex.shtml

What is your research question? Maybe that would be a good place to start. If you have a specific question, you should be able to identify a suitable experiment to do.

Donna Hardy

[Jacobie09]

To quote

"I am not certain what you are planning to do for an experiment."

I want to put emphasis on this statement because this is important. You need to figure this out. Also, try to make one that breaks ground. I know that's hard, but this is what they are looking for. Think hard.

[Ashun]

Yeah, it's incernation!
Considering plastics & petroleum both hydrocarbons, I decided to work on this.But seeing no other option, I thaught abt Incernation.
I made some hypothesis & questions through keywords,(it helps) but the EXPERIMENTS are still a problem for me.
I couldn't think any planning for experiments which cud give better results.
Thanks!(especially Donna)

[Ashun]

Agarrrrrh....!!!!!
My experiments are not giving desired results!
Or, i'm not able to find experimentation for my desired results!

[donnahardy2]

Hi Ashun,

This is an excellent topic for a science project, but you need to identify a purpose for your experiments. Please read the following article to understand some of the problems involved in incineration of plastics:

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678072/why- ... for-energy

You need to design an experiment that will either help improve the design for incineration of plastics or solve one of the environmental problems. So, do you want to work on a process that will convert the heat to electricity more efficiently, or work on eliminating the dangerous chemicals-hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, or heavy metals?

Once you decide on the problem you want to solve, do an internet search and look for scientific papers on the topic. You can design the details of your experiment based on recently scientific papers.

Donna Hardy

[John Dreher]

Dona's excellent advice included "do an internet search and look for scientific papers on the topic". This will be MUCH easier if you can get access to a large university library. Since you do not subscribe to the journals in which most papers are published, you won't be able to read the papers you find. This problem is avoided if you can access the on-line journals from a university IP address. If you cannot go to such a library physically, you could attempt to find someone in the world who does have such access and would be willing to download the papers you need and then email them to you. I would help but I no longer have such access. This system is very unfair, especially for researchers living in less wealthy countries, but that can't be helped. There are a few journals that have been set up in an attempt to begin to remedy this problem. They go by the name PLoS, Public Library of Science. Articles in their journals are free for all to use.

Good luck researching!