Marine minerals will be key to India’s future economy: Union Minister

OV Digital Desk
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Marine minerals will be key to India's future economy

Dr Jitendra Singh today said that marine minerals from coastal and ocean sources will be key to India’s future economy. | Image source: Ministry of Science & Technology

Dr Jitendra Singh today said that marine minerals from coastal and ocean sources will be key to India’s future economy. In addition, he said, metals like nickel and cobalt play a significant role in promoting renewable energy technologies needed to fight the climate change challenges.

Inaugurating the new building facilities at CSIR-IMMT (Institute of Minerals & Materials Technology) at Bhubaneswar, Dr Jitendra Singh told the scientists and students that IMMT is a R&D Lab of national importance in minerals and materials technology under the aegis of CSIR to address the problems of industry for their sustainable development.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that steps are being taken for close coordination and collaboration between IIMT and NIOT (National Institute of Ocean Technology), Chennai for accelerated progress in developing India’s blue economy and harnessing its ocean resources. He said, efforts are on for development of suitable technologies for effective mining of some of the deep-sea mineral resources and exploitation of gas hydrates resources.

Minister launched India’s First Manned Ocean Mission Samudrayan at Chennai to carry out deep ocean exploration of the non-living resources such as polymetallic manganese nodules, gas hydrates, hydro-thermal sulphides and cobalt crusts, located at a depth between 1000 and 5500 meters.

Currently, under the Common Research and Technology Development Hub (CRTDH) program, many collaborative projects with Metallurgical/Agro/Boiler/Electronic/Minerals- MSMEs/Start-ups, focusing on development of new materials, coatings, agro-waste to wealth (K-enriched fertilizer), electronic waste to wealth (recovery of precious metals) etc are being undertaken. It has provided more than 4 number of technological solutions to agro and metallurgical/minerals industries and 10 know-hows related to fighting against COVID like sanitizers, liquid soap, disinfection kits etc. to around 14 MSMEs since its start.

Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM)

Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) is a high-end characterization equipment which has been procured to create an advanced characterization facility in order to augment R&D activities of the institute with latest developments.

Being an advanced technique, the TEM facility of CSIR-IMMT can evaluate material structures, phase composition, and texture etc. at nanoscales. It can characterize magnetic nanoparticles using Lorentz lens and can extract simultaneous information of surface and bulk 3D information. This facility will open new scopes in modern research opportunities for the scientists, research scholars, and faculties of educational institutes as well as industries engaged in material development and shall enable Knowledge Generation, Human Resource Development, ECF generation, Publications/Patents, New R&D opportunities.

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