Healthcare and Science thomsonreuters.com

Cavitation is not generated by standard means such as using ultrasound but rather is generated through the flow of the water and that's why we call it hydrodynamic gravitation. So for the past 15 years or so this area has been the focus of my research.

In the First World War, militaries wanted to build larger and faster ships so naturally they started building larger, higher speed propellers. But they encountered a problem where they observed that the propeller blades were getting worn out as a result of a cavitation phenomenon that is the top velocity of the blade increases to a level where the pressure drops to such a low value that the water is capable of being spontaneously vaporized - essentially a low level boiling point. As these bubbles move away from the propeller they collapse releasing a high velocity liquid jet and a shockwave of such large magnitude that the blades are just worn away over time.

People continued to view this only as a nuisance but we thought what if we could harness this cavitational energy release for bringing about physical, chemical and biological changes by delivering the energy at the location of change then huge energy savings could potentially be obtained. This is known as cavitationally induced transformations.
Cavitational bubbles have been in existence for a long time. In fact a study by Professor Lohse of Twente University in the Netherlands into the so-called 'snapping shrimp' showed that the loud popping sounds they make from the imploding air bubbles collapse to emit flashes of light that can flare as hot as the sun's surface.

We are exploring many ways of harnessing this energy and have so far been successful in using this energy for emulsification, homogenisation and the breakdown of complex organic among others.

Our focus for the next 3-5 years is ballast water treatment. This is a global issue and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has come out with new guidelines to treat this water, which is carried by ships for balancing, where Hydrodynamic Cavitation has proved very convenient to use.

The expected deliverables are to have technologies based on Hydrodynamic Cavitation for water disinfection, for potable water in India, ballast water treatment technology, crystal size control in the Pharma industry and creating water-based fuel emulsions for easy combustions.