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This paper provides a comprehensive review of literature on the properties of sugar industry waste, their varied uses in energy and construction sector, performance and limitations. An efficient upcycling of sugar industry waste in energy production would help the energy sector to reduce its dependency on non-renewable fossil fuels. Literature demonstrates that in the recent years there has been an increased research interest in thermochemical conversion of sugarcane bagasse to produce cleaner energy, rather than its landfilling or combustion. On the other hand, utilisation of secondary by-products from sugar industry in the production of cement, bricks, paver blocks, activated binder and other construction products helps to cut down the carbon footprint of the construction industry, while improving the properties of the final products. From the perspective of the sugar industry, such an arrangement eliminates disposal problems and creates additional revenue. Although independent research studies investigating the use of sugar industry by-products exist, few studies consider these valorisation options together to minimise waste and to create an efficient material flow chain. This study identifies various material and energy recovery pathways from published literature and connects the materials and processes to form a continuous material supply chain with minimum wastage. From the findings, a symbiotic framework has been developed with primary and secondary by-products from the sugar industry serving as source materials for energy production and sustainable construction products.

On the 11th of March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) affirmed COVID-19, a pandemic, in response to more than 1,00,000 confirmed cases globally in more than 100 nations and the persistent danger of spreading further. Presently, there’s no remedy or vaccine for COVID-19. The only way to curb its menace is taking precautionary measures, as advised by the health experts. Social distancing, that is maintaining a minimum distance of 1 to 1.5 meter between two individuals, is one of the foremost proactive measures advised by WHO. This paper presents a smart wearable device, Suraksha, that can be worn while travelling outside and will help maintain social distancing. The user will be able to rely on this device’s alerting mechanism without having to constantly worry about their surroundings. It is a simple device which is easy to use and is built using basic electronic components. The device is also capable of integrating with the health applications over Bluetooth and support contact tracing.

Extensive studies have been reported on the development of service-life prediction of reinforced concrete structures in the last two decades. Service life of a reinforced concrete structure is dependent on the corrosion process, specifically chloride threshold value. Chloride threshold value is a distinctive property and is dependent on several factors such as the supplementary cementitious material used, presence of surface cracks, water to binder ratio, type of steel reinforcement, exposure conditions, measurement methods, etc. Although chloride threshold value is an influential parameter in service-life prediction, a definitive chloride threshold value considering these factors is not reported in the existing literature and standards. Moreover, values adopted in many analytical tools for service life predictions based on the type of steel reinforcement alone are not appropriate and leads to inaccurate calculations. There is a gap in the available literature in understanding the selection of suitable chloride threshold values to be adopted for a specific system. Therefore, it is imperative to study the variation of chloride threshold value with exposure conditions as well as other influencing parameters, to achieve proper service life prediction. In the paper, several influencing parameters on chloride threshold value and its significance on prediction method are comprehensively reviewed. Moreover, suitable recommendations are highlighted for Indian and international standards at the later part of the study.