Name : Subhash Ola
District & State : Alwar, Rajasthan
Category : Engineering
Award : National
Award Function : 8th National Grassroots Innovation Awards
Award Year : 2015
Innovator Profile
Innovation Description
Scout: Swabhiman
Mawa is an important milk product used to make sweets. It is traditionally prepared by boiling milk until it becomes semi-solid by heating it over firewood. Subhash Ola (35) has made modifications in the boiler of conventional mawa making machine making it energy efficient.
Background
Subhash hails from a farming family of Alwar and has three siblings. Though he was very good in studies, he had to drop out to assist his father. Apart from farming, his father also used to drill bore well. Subhash was initially engaged in bore well digging, then he took up farming and tried his hands at computer assembling as well. He married early and has two daughters and a son, all school students presently.
As a child, looking at the silencer of vehicles, he used to wonder whether the hot air emitted by silencer could be used in any way. He had deep interest in steam based technology. In class 8th he developed a small steam turbine of ½ kW where steam was recycled. The turbine could light a bulb of 6W. With time, his interest in steam technology grew further and he undertook more research on steam technology on his own. In 2000 he developed a 2 kW engine with a modified design. Later in 2013, he designed anefficient heat exchanger for exhaust steam of a steam engine and the feed water (economiser).
Genesis
Traditionally, mawa is being made in kadai on an open stove by burning fire wood. An improved technique for the commercial production of mawa is by making use of steam for heating milk. In place of direct flame heating, the wood is burned in the boiler and steam produced is distributed to a number of kadais fitted with steam jacket. After heating the milk, exhaust steam is collected at bottom and condensed in open tank. As the systems are not properly fitted, a lot of steam escapes from various joints. These leakages reduce the efficiency of the system, which results in higher steam consumption, more wood consumption and also more of the water. As the water used in steam generation is normal (untreated) water, higher throughput of steam causes more scaling in boiler, further reducing the heat transfer efficiency and also the life of the boiler.
Subhash saw a boiler based mawa making machine at an industry in Jaipur. At that point of time, he was trying to design improved boilers. After interacting with the industry person he got perturbed by the amount of wood and water consumed to make mawa. The machine used over 100kg of wood and 4000lit of water to extract mawa from 100 lit of milk. It also consumedconsiderable amount of electricity for running chiller pump to condense the rejected steam, making the whole process very costly.
He started to improve the design of boiler in the mawa making machine and after almost ten years of hard work, he successfully developed the improved boiler based machine for making mawa in year 2009.
http://nif.org.in/innovation/modified-boiler-based-mawa-maker/798