IIT Kharagpur calls for 100 Patents in 100 days

Aligning with India’s Semiconductor Mission and with an aim to strengthen the semiconductor facilities in India and to celebrate India’s Techade Vision and Viksit Bharat @2047, IIT Kharagpur conducted an In-house programme on the India’s Semiconductor Mission in the Netaji Auditorium of the institute that involved 650 participants including students, faculty members, and staff members.

Lighting of the Lamp

The programme began with the lighting of the lamp by Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur in the presence of Prof. Amit Patra, Deputy Director; Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean, R&D; Prof. Krishna Kumar, Dean, FoS; Prof. T K Bhattacharya, HoD, E&ECE; Prof. A K Singh, President, TSG; Captain Amit Jain (Retd.), Registrar of IIT Kharagpur.


Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean R&D addresses the gathering

A brief introduction of the India’s Semi-conductor Mission was addressed by Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Dean R&D, IIT Kharagpur that gave a vivid idea about how semi-conductors are evolving to be the basic ingredient for all our operating and manufacturing devices. Prof. Banerjee highlighted the need of a streamlined applications of ISM that is necessary for Quantum Computing and Quantum Mission. She added that IIT Kharagpur has to take the lead role in ISM and has the adequate resources to support this mission with IP protection and infrastructure development. She also encouraged the war cry for “100 Patents in 100 Days and further towards 100 Patents in 100 Hours.”

Students, Faculty and Staff Members gathered in the Netaji Auditorium

A special drive of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy Cell of IIT Kharagpur, has successfully filed an increase in about 2.5 folds enhanced patent filing in the year 2023 compared to previous year 2022. Similarly, a 4-fold increase in the number of granted patents has been achieved by the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy Cell with the Special initiative taken. A record number of 106 patents have been filed and 71 got granted in 2023 which is more than 4 times compared to 2022. The patents are from different fields viz Aerospace, Agricultural and Food Processing, Chemical, Electrical, Civil, Computer Science, AI and IoT, Cryogenics, Robotics, Rubber Technology, 6G & beyond telecommunication, Energy Science, Industrial and Systems, Metallurgical and Materials, Mining, Nanoscience and Technology, Medical Science and Technology.

Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur addressing the gathering

Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur remarked, “I congratulate all the faculty members, scholars and students for their initiatives and innovations with special thanks to the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy Cell. ‘100 days 100 patents’ drive has a special promotional effect on the entire patent prosecution process. We have also taken special initiative for International patent filings. IIT Kharagpur have produced the national as well as global leaders that dominate the AI and Semi-conductor industry today and the institute has already engaged 10,000 students for AI in Cyber Physical Systems aiming to incubate 20,000 students in the next cohort. The institute is working towards infrastructure development for Assembling and Testing Facility to create the ecosystem to implement ISM successfully and critical mass education at the B.Tech, M.Tech & PhD level along with 35,000 specialized technicians along with global university collaborations for industry-academia participation.”

Live Telecast of Prime Minister’s Address

India’s Semiconductor Mission has been setup by the Government of India to create an end-to-end semiconductor ecosystem to enable the nation to become a significant player in the global semiconductor industry. Therefore, to celebrate India’s Techade Vision, India’s Semi-Conductor Mission and how Viksit Bharat @2047 can be achieved through research and innovation, IIT Kharagpur conducted an In-house programme in the Netaji Auditorium of the institute that involved the participation of the students, faculty members, and staff members. The institute also conducted a Panel Discussion on the Scope & Opportunities of IIT Kharagpur in Indian Semiconductor Mission with the senior faculties of the institute.

Prof. T K Bhattacharya, HoD, Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering giving his presentation on ISM

Prof. T K Bhattacharya, HoD, Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering gave a presentation on India Semiconductor Research Centre (ISRC) Vision to drive an innovation roadmap in advanced semiconductor and packaging technologies, coordinate university research and accelerate manufacturing capability across India and the world that includes Academic Research & Development; Industry Research & Development; Volume Manufacturing; India University Innovation Pipeline and Research Collaboration. He amplified the need for foundational research pillars for ISRC that comprises of Advanced Logic; Packaging R&D; Compound/Power Semiconductor and Chop Design & EDA and gave a detailed ideation on mapping R&D Investments. He also emphasized on the need for Academic R&D; Educated Workforce; ISRC Structure and Governance; ISRC indigenously developed agenda for global impact etc.

Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering giving a presentation on ISM Packaging

His presentation was followed by Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur who presented the need for Design Semiconductor Packaging and Systems (DSPS). He defined Electronic and Integrated System Packaging that are essential commodities required for ISM.

Panel Discussion on Scope & Opportunities of IIT Kharagpur in Indian Semiconductor Mission

After the address of the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, a panel discussion was organized on the topic, “Scope & Opportunities of IIT Kharagpur in the Indian Semiconductor Mission,“ with Prof. Amit Patra, Deputy Director; Prof. T K Bhattacharya, HoD, E&ECE; Prof. D K Goswami, Physics;  Prof. S. Basu Majumdar, HOC, (MSC); Prof. Anandaroop Bhattacharya, ME; Prof. Mrinal Kanti Mandal, E&ECE; Prof. Samit K Ray, Physics; Prof. S S Das, GSSST and Prof. S K Varshney, E&ECE. The entire programme was hosted by Dr. Rajeev Rawat, Hindi Officer, IIT Kharagpur. The programme concluded with a Vote of Thanks by Captain Amit Jain (Retd.), Registrar, IIT Kharagpur.

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Cucumber Peels for Ecofriendly Food Packaging

Are you throwing away the cucumber peels after preparing your salad? You may soon have them back in your kitchen as the eco-friendly packaging material for food items.

IIT Kharagpur researchers have developed cellulose nanocrystals from cucumber peels with high cellulose content, compared to other peel wastes, which can be used to create food packaging materials.

While single-use plastic is consciously being avoided by consumers, they still remain largely in circulation as food packaging items. Natural biopolymers are unable to make way in this industry as they lack strength, elongation, barrier property, optical property, and in some cases even biological safety. The cellulose nanomaterial developed by researchers, Prof. Jayeeta Mitra and N. Sai Prasanna at IIT Kharagpur’s Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering from raw cucumber waste, has addressed this challenge.

What are cellulose nanocrystals?

Food packaging materials require nano-filler reinforced bio-composites which can be derived from the cellulose widely available from the outer skin of fruits and vegetables. These cellulose fibres can be used to produce cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), bio-based nanomaterials with defined nano-scale structural dimensions. They are produced through controlled acid hydrolysis which removes amorphous regions, and produces more crystalline regions.

The product from raw to final form: Top – Cucumber Peels, Bottom Left – Raw Fibre, Right – Dried cellulose nanocrystals

Cucumber-based CNCs Developed by IIT Kharagpur Researchers

In India, cucumber finds wide use in salads, pickles, cooked vegetables or consumed raw and also in the beverage industry leading to a large volume of peel biowaste which is rich in cellulose content.

“Cucumbers generate about 12% residual wastes obtained after processing either the peels or whole slices as waste. We have used the celluloses, hemicellulose, pectin extracted from this processed material for deriving new bio-materials which are useful as nano-fillers in bio-composites,” said Dr.  Jayeeta Mitra, Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering.

Talking about the findings, she further added, “Our study shows that cellulose nanocrystals derived from cucumber peels possess modifiable properties due to the presence of abundant hydroxyl groups, which resulted in better biodegradability and biocompatibility. These nanocellulose materials emerged as strong, renewable and economic material of the near future, due to unique properties like a high surface area to volume ratio, light in weight, and excellent mechanical properties. Thereby, such nanocrystals, when reinforced as nano-fillers in bio-composites films, can produce effective food packaging materials with low oxygen permeabilities.”

Schematic sketch on cellulose nanocrystals through acid hydrolysis

The present study revealed that cucumber peels possessed greater cellulose content (18.22%) than other peel waste. It also provided better insights into their crystalline, thermal and colloidal properties of cucumber cellulose.

Research scholar N. Sai Prasanna said, “The crystallinity percentage as high as 74.1 % along with thermal stability of more than 200 °C negative zeta potential values (< -30 mV), and acid hydrolysis yield of 65.55%, make the material a strong nano-filler reinforcement as bio-nano composite. This offers the much needed mechanical, barrier, optical, rheological properties, nontoxicity, etc. required for food packaging materials which has the strong market potential to replace plastic.”

Market Potential – Application of CNCs and Environmental Sustainability

This non-toxic, biodegradable and biocompatible product has no adverse effects on health and the environment hence could have a huge market potential by rendering management of organic waste with high cellulose content profitable.

“Apart from the food packaging and beverage industries the researchers are optimistic about its scope in various fields like thermo-reversible and tenable hydrogels making, paper making, coating additives, food packaging materials, bio-composites, optically transparent films, as stabilizers in oil-water emulsion. Also, CNCs find good potential applications in biopharmaceutical applications such as drug delivery and fabricating temporary implants like sutures, stents etc.,” added Sai Prasanna.

The researchers further made a note for packaging industry players in our country for substantial investments to improve packaging material properties for better sustainability, disposal and decomposition issues. All these demands for biodegradable packaging will propel the nanocellulose market in the coming timeframe contributing towards a sustainable and plastic-free world, opined Prof. Mitra.

“The incremental usage of petroleum-based plastics in food packaging, spanning a few decades, has raised many challenges as these plastics are the indomitable sources of environmental pollution since nearly 60% of it is converted to landfill, and rest is recycled only once. More research and product development focused on various biopolymers from either macromolecules or from the microbial polymers would be able to make the sector acceptable to packing material producers with wider awareness, alternative products at economic prices,” she remarked.

Cite this paper: Prasanna, N. S., & Mitra, J. (2020). Isolation and characterization of cellulose nanocrystals from Cucumis sativus peels. Carbohydrate Polymers247, 116706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116706

Contacts:

For Research:

Dr. Jayeeta Mitra, Assistant Professor  

Agricultural & Food Engineering Department

Email: jayeeta.mitra@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in

For Media:

Shreyoshi Ghosh, EO (M&C)

Office of Director, IIT Kharagpur

E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

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About Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering

IIT Kharagpur has the sole distinction of having a department in the area of Agricultural & Food Engineering, which comprises six disciplines such as Farm Machinery and Power, Land and Water Resources Engineering, Agricultural Biotechnology, Food Process Engineering, Agricultural Systems Management and Aquacultural Engineering, respectively. The major domain of research and development includes Precision agriculture, biofuel and bioenergy, modern food processing, plasticulture and micro-irrigation, Climate Change, hydrological modeling, groundwater management, water management, agricultural biotechnology, pollution abatement, extrusion technology, intelligent and high-pressure packaging, soil mapping and image analysis for plant phenotyping. Sponsored research projects and development activities deal with Integrated Rainwater Management, Soil Tillage, Utilisation of Fly ash, Ergonomic Database for Agricultural Equipment, Integrating Remote Sensing Data with Distributed Hydrological Models, Model Pilot Plant and koji room facilities for the production of industrial enzymes etc. More info . . .