IIT-Guwahati, NRL to develop eco-friendly plastics

Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati on Monday said it has joined hands with Northeast's largest PSU refiner Numaligarh Refinery to develop environment-friendly sustainable plastics.

For this purpose, the institute has established the 'NRL - Centre of Excellence (CoE)' for Sustainable Materials Translational facility on bioplastics at its campus, IIT-G said in a statement.

The partnership between IIT-Guwahati and Assam-based NRL for establishing the CoE on bioplastics is a first-of-its-kind academic-industrial collaboration and it is likely to foster R&D work along with production of biodegradable plastics utilising the waste and intermediate materials.

Speaking about the facility, IIT Guwahati Officiating Director Prof Parameswar K Iyer said: ''Such holistic technological advancement in the area of biodegradable plastics through industry support is a one-of-its-kind initiative in the country.

''We are hopeful that the industries will use the available knowledge base to speed up further commercial activities in the compostable plastics sector as the current plastic problem needs to be addressed without further delay,'' he said.

Talking about the work being done in this field, NRL-CoE for Sustainable Materials Coordinator Prof Vimal Katiyar said the centre is targeting to utilize bamboo as the main raw material for the production of biodegradable plastics and related products.

''Once adopted, it will lead to significant industrialisation in the region. We have worked on various technologies related to compostable plastics and these technologies are open for the industries,'' he added.

The recently established unit houses the first biodegradable pilot plastic production plant along with several processing facilities for various biodegradable plastic products such as compostable cutlery, carry bags, plastic containers and glasses among others.