Solar Energy Prospects in Bangladesh: Target and Current Status

Owing to the favorable geographical location, Bangladesh captures a good amount of solar radiation per day. The proper utilization of this solar energy may reduce the country’s energy demand to a great extent. Bangladesh government has already made a master plan to utilize the abundant solar energy in different ways with a capacity development target of 600 MW by the end of 2021. Until 2018 a total capacity of 220 MW of solar power could be achieved by installing 6.9 million solar home systems (SHSs). On the other way, rooftop solar and solar mini-grid projects facilitated the capacity of 3.07 MW and 5 MW, respectively. A capacity of 32 MW could also be touched by solar irrigation projects with more than 1300 pumps for serving country’s rural people, and solar-diesel hybrid solution program (by installing 138 small power stations) has been supporting the telecom operators. Bangladesh power development board (BPDB), and Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) have been promoting numerous research-development solar projects to many governments and private universities to build sustainable energy equipped country.

Study on the Physical and Mechanical Properties of Al-Powder Reinforced Bioactive Glass: Ceramic Composite Material

Glass-ceramic samples, having composition of SiO2-35, CaO-45, Na2O-10 and P2O5-10 in weight ratio were prepared through sintering route. Glass powder was reinforced by Al powder. The strength of glass-ceramic composite was found to be temperature dependent, and it varies with the addition of Al powder. Flexural strength increases with the increase of powder addition and sintering temperature, however, decreases with the increase of sintering time. There is an optimum temperature (>1100℃) above which flexural strength of all samples decreases. Bulk density changes to a higher value as the addition of Al-powder increases up to 3% by weight above which density decreases slowly. On the other hand, apparent porosity and water absorption decrease with the increase of percentage of Al powder added. Porosity and water absorption also showed a dependent characteristic on sintering time and sintering temperature.