The past year has seen the organization mature and redefine its purpose as we changed our name from RRL to IMMT. There is clarity of focus and a renewed level of commitment that has been bringing success. I am very pleased to report on our achievements for the year 2007-08, which to me, is a record year and some of those achievements will act as seeds for future initiatives.

The past year has been particularly a successful one for the mineral processing group. The group mainly focused on (i) flow-sheet development and plant audit, (ii) low-grade ore processing, and (iii) processing of waste material. Some of the noteworthy achievements to draw attention to are as follows:

• Flow sheet development : Two commercial flowsheets to process phosphate and iron ores have been developed for Nilefos Minerals, Uganda and Jindal Steel respectively. Currently, IMMT has been assisting Nilefos Minerals to set up a 50 tons/day plant at Uganda and providing basic engineering support to Jindal Steel to install a 1500 tph iron ore beneficiation plant.


• Plant Audit: IMMT has a long-standing reputation for in-plant improvement, de-bottlenecking and optimization studies. I report highlights of some important projects below:
• KIOCL—A modified flowsheet has been suggested after plant audit to overcome specific problems associated with the iron ore pelletization plant to treat Donamalai ore.
• Essar Steel—Operation of various units of the iron ore beneficiation plant at Kirandul is being evaluated with different types of feed material. Our efforts are likely to enable the company to overcome scarcity of high quality raw material.
• Orissa Mining Corporation—Several recommendations are made to improve the performance of chromite ore beneficiation plant.
• Jindal Steel—Plant audit of the 10 tph chromite beneficiation plant was carried out. Upon analysis of data, several modifications to the existing flowsheet including installation of a roll crusher were suggested.
• Low-grade ore processing: This year there has been an increased demand to develop flowsheet to treat low grade ore. This led to partnership building with major industrial houses like Jindal Steel, Essar Steel, Brahmani River Pellets Ltd., and SAIL, just to name a few. One thing seems certain to me and that is what we are witnessing—a focal shift in iron ore processing. More industries are now inclined to process low-grade ore rather than calibrated high grade ore which is a welcome trend.
• Waste to Wealth: Mineral processing plants and metal industries generate a large quantity and wide varieties of wastes that pose serious risk to the environment. But the good news is that the same waste can be converted to wealth by applying innovative methods that would reduce the environmental impact and maximize the benefits of these operations. Some of the typical examples are -
• A novel strategy to reduce slimes from mineral sand deposit was suggested to TATA Steel.
• In the nonferrous domain, similar partnerships have been established, particularly to recover copper from tailings and slag, with Birla Copper and Shapoorji and Pallonji & Co. Ltd. We found that up to 80% copper could be recovered from copper tailings and slag.
• A flowsheet to treat aluminum refinery plant sand to enrich TiO2 content from 9 to 42% was developed for NALCO. The TiO2 is being used to prepare TiC by plasma smelting route.
• Column flotation: IMMT has been working on column flotation ever since its inception. Today, I am happy to announce that Tega Industries has agreed to market our technology in India and abroad. In presence of Mr. Mehul Mohanka, Executive Director, we formalized the technology transfer agreement on 7th August 2007.
• A 2 ton/hr flotation column for Chemico Chemicals Pvt. Ltd. to beneficiate antimony ore was designed and commissioned.
• Another column flotation unit is being designed for Essar Steel, Kirandul to process 52% Fe present in the tailings.
• IMMT has taken up a project from TATA Steel to recover the chrome values from tailings using column flotation. Large scale studies are planned to generate the design data for a commercial plant.

I am happy to announce that the much awaited CSIR network project became operational but towards end of the year. The main objective of this exercise would be to develop technology that will economically process low-grade iron ore. IMMT is the nodal laboratory for this network project and shall work in close cooperation with four other CSIR laboratories. I expect that the findings of this project will have major impact on the future of iron ore industry.

Our bio-mineral processing program has matured from an R&D endeavor to a solution-provider enterprise, particularly for processing of low-grade ore and waste materials. Several interesting projects are currently underway and noteworthy among them are two major projects on microbial processing of chromite overburden available at Sukinda (OMC) and microbial desulfurization of calcined petroleum coke (ALCOA). The results are highly promising in as much as the processes can be scaled up for immediate commercial success.

On the extractive metallurgy front, I am pleased to announce that MoEF under the XI Five Year Plan, continued its support IMMT to continue with the longterm program on polymetallic nodule. In this connection, it is worth mentioning my participation along with Dr. R.K. Paramguru in the conference on Shaping the Future—Deep-Sea Minerals and Mining that took place from March 9-13, 2008 at the Institute of Mineralogy and Economic Geology of the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. The knowledge gained provided new insight into deep sea mining which calls for shifting our focus from manganese nodule to massive sulfides as the latter is the most likely candidate for commercial exploitation, should deep-sea mining become economical. The hydrometallurgy department continues to work with Heavy Water Board in processing merchant grade phosphoric acid.

The plasma processing group secured major contracts from Indian Rare Earths Ltd. to prepare mullite (3Al2O3.2SiO2) which is a low cost refractory material from sillimanite (rich in Al2O3 and SiO2). Also SiC powder has been successfully produced in an arc pot type thermal plasma reactor. In between, we have made sincere and collective efforts to participate in the national fusion program led by the Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar, Gujarat. A project on development of jacket material for the fusion reactor has been secured and another project on purification of niobium metal for preparation of super conductor is in the pipeline. We are proud to be associated with the national fusion program. In the thermal plasma area we have come a long way but the best of our plasma program lies ahead. It is only recently CSIR recognized our efforts and assured us to provide funds to set up a Centre of Excellence in Plasma Processing of Minerals and Materials.

The colloids and materials chemistry department was established in May, 2006 with a total strength of four scientists and one technical officer. Since then it has made a major impact on various facets of surface and colloids science. Currently, our activities are predominantly focused on catalysis, functional materials, and solid oxide fuel cell. We have put in place a state of the art infrastructure and acquired expertise to tune the properties of functional materials/ceramics for several interesting applications relating to catalysis, coatings, bio-sensor, targeted drug delivery, solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and photo-electrochemical (PEC) cells. For our R&D work, we have been receiving financial support from Naval Materials Research Laboratory, Ministry of Non-renewable Energy, Nano mission program of DST, and BRNS. Presently, we plan to create a SOFC testing facility to assess the performance of our products and develop appropriate design parameters.

The combination of increasing industrial activities, unsustainable levels of consumption, and climate change is putting our ecosystems under increasing stress. We understand the situation and stand guard by monitoring the ecosystem, sustainability, and environmental condition in this region. The long term program on coastal ocean monitoring and prediction system by the Ministry of Earth Sciences got extended into the XI plan period. IMMT has been entrusted to monitor six hot spot transects season wise and ten other transects once in a year. In addition to this long term program, we continue to work on pollution monitoring and environmental impact assessment work at Paradeep Port and Dhamra Port. The collaboration between Stockholm Environment Institute and IMMT continues. This year we made integrated campaign to collect and characterize aerosol, precipitates, and trace gases at several sites in and around Bhubaneswar.

The Terafil™ based water filter finally reached the people with Govt. of Orissa’s support. We have been entrusted to develop and manufacture 75,000 sets of 30 liter capacity Terafil™ water filter system for trial and demonstration in various places before execution of long term dissemination program in Orissa and elsewhere. Since its launching on 10th August 2007 by Honourable Chief Minister of Orissa, nearly 10,000 filters have been distributed and the next batch is getting ready for distribution. We received support of the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Govt. of India to propagate our technology across India. I am particularly thankful to Mrs. Shantha Sheela Nair, who provided us with a platform under Bharat Nirman Scheme to speedily reach our target. Today there is tremendous interest in our product and we are overwhelmed with response from both Public and Government.

In our quest to explore the nature for potential drug compounds, we have made attempts to bio-screen several sources of marine, mangrove and forest flora and fauna. Some of the extracts showing anti-malarial, anti-ulcer and musquitocidal activities have been selected for further bio-activity assessment. Methods for in- vitro and vegetative propagation of economically important plants have been perfected, which are likely to attract investment from agriculture sector. A number of field surveys were conducted to inventorize plant biodiversity and traditional knowledge.

Last year I spelt out my vision of IMMT playing a bigger role in reaching out to the industrial sector. This year IMMT licensed two of its proven technologies in the area of flotation and water filtration to relevant industries. These technologies are basically designed to serve the indigenous market in the mineral processing and rural sector. I am also happy to report that this year our performance is at its best compared to earlier years. Our external cash flow touched a new all-time high figure of Rs. 7.38 Crores after tax, which is 61% more than what we received last year. More important, fifty percent of our earnings came from industries. Our scientists also contributed to 102 papers in different research journals of international and national repute and submitted 12 patents for consideration.

This is just a brief description of the wide variety of R&D activities undertaken by IMMT in what has been a demanding, but productive year. I thank all scientists and staff, who have contributed immensely to this year’s growth and achievements. My thanks also go to our R&D partners and sponsors who have worked with us to ensure a real atmosphere of growth.

Thank you and Jai Hind.