Page 48 - Scientech 2016-17

infected wounds including diabetic wounds.
very encouraging results in terms of their
value in creation of wealth together with new
knowledge. In what follows, I shall discuss a
few simple examples from our work done in
the past three years.
First example is of a low cost dressing for
chronic non-healing wounds. The steep rise
in cases of diabetes and incidence of antibiotic
resistant bacteria pose serious doubts
regarding the effectiveness of conventional
wound management. Advanced wound
care in the form of newer class of dressing
materials has emerged as a promising
alternative for treating chronic, difficult to
heal wounds. However, its wider application
is limited due to high cost. Chemistry Group,
BARC has developed a simple, low cost
dressing suitable for application on infected,
non-healing wounds. The dressing is based
on the principle of production of nitrogen
oxides, particularly nitric oxide, a gas which
has powerful infection-fighting and wound-
healing properties. The dressing is very
effective in treatment of chronic, non-healing,
48 Scientech
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partnership with M/s Kayakalpa Remedies Company (NALCO) to recover gallium from
The dressing can be stored at ambient
temperature and humidity conditions for
two years without loss of activity, a factor
which is critical for penetration of the
technology in rural India. The technology
has been transferred to M/s Cologenesis
Health Care Products, Salem, Tamil Nadu
for commercialization. The technology was
amongst 40 innovative technologies selected
by ICMR for presentation at Rashtrapati
Bhawan in April 2016. Economic impact of
this innovation can be gauged from a report
by Visiongain which predicts that the total
advanced wound dressing market to be
worth $ 16.3 billion by 2023.
Fluoride contamination in ground water is a
major concern in 200 districts of 15 states
including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat,
Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu
etc. Over 90 million people in India suffer
from health effects related to high fluoride
concentration. WHO has recommended
safe level of fluoride in drinking water
in the range of 1 to 1.5 mg/L. We have
developed a visual detection kit for fluoride
detection which has become a boon to rural
population of the country. A special reagent
is developed and distributed across the
country through trained private operators.
Testing of water is simple: take four parts of
water and mix with one part of the reagent. If
the colour of the mixture is pink then water
is deficient in fluoride (< 1 mg/l), if light
pink then water is normal or safe (1 to 1.5
mg/l fluoride) and if yellow then water has
excess of fluoride (> 2 mg/l) which is toxic
for drinking. This kit has been adjudged
as the best kit among 18 kits by a UNICEF
study. The technology of the kits has been
transferred to a number of private parties
including, M/s LTEK industries (Nagpur),
M/s ORLAB Instruments (Hyderabad),
M/s H.S. Industries (Hyderabad), M/s
P.S. Industries (Amravati), M/s Kayakalpa
Remedies (Bhopal), M/s Transchem Agri
Tech (Baroda) and M/s Max Chemicals
(Indore). We have now developed a simple
technique for removal of fluoride from
drinking water, which has been successfully
tested in several areas of Madhya Pradesh in
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(Bhopal). We have also developed simple the process streams of aluminum industry.
and effective methodologies for removal of It is well known that gallium is an important
arsenic and iron from potable water. All element widely used in electronic, opto-
these simple technologies achieve three electronic and lighting industry. We have
things simultaneously: providing clean further developed technologies for ultra-
water, creation of local entrepreneurs and purification of commercial gallium to
employment, and economic progress. electronic purity grade and for production
of trimethyl gallium which is a precursor for
Waste water treatment is a major issue that production of gallium arsenide or gallium
has come to focus in recent times. With more nitride. Thus the R&D collaboration with
than 50% of India facing high to extremely NALCO will complete the entire supply chain
high water stress, it is important to develop of gallium from production to device making
low cost technologies, which can treat waste all with indigenous technologies. Another
water and permit its recycling/reuse. In interesting example is our collaboration
the first stage, we have concentrated on with M/s Hare Krishna Diamond Exports,
the treatment of domestic and municipal Surat in the field of utilization of diamond
waste water. The technology choice here waste. Mention may also be made to our
is dictated by simplicity, efficiency, cost work involving the lithium ion battery; the
effectiveness and adaptability to Indian material technology has been transferred to
conditions; for example, the technology M/s Utopia Automation & Control, Satara.
must have a foot print as small as possible
and it can be set up at any scale to cater to Recently the concept of sustainability has
a house hold or to a township. Conventional become a central theme of our developmental
activated sludge process is the standard for strategies. Sustainable development is
waste water treatment widely used in India; development that meets the needs of the
however the technology suffers from several
disadvantages. We have adapted aerobic
granular biomass technology, which is
advancement over the conventional process
and provides several advantages such as (a)
cost effectiveness due to compact design,
small foot print, lower capital, operational
and maintenance costs and lower energy
consumption (b) ease of operation, (c)
sustainability due to high effluent quality,
efficient nutrient removal and low carbon
footprint and (d) scalability, i.e., 500 L (for
one household), 10,000 L (for a building)
and 1 ML (for a locality). This development
provides an opportunity of developing local
entrepreneurs while conserving water and
contributing to the Clean India mission.
India also needs R&D programmes to
help industry and thereby make them
competitive in the international trade. A
concerted effort is required today to close
all supply chains of industries and new
knowledge to this end needs to come from
research laboratories. We have established
collaboration with National Aluminum
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