3-Feb-2022: New method can efficiently transform phenol to a key ingredient for manufacturing food preservatives, pharmaceuticals & polymers
Indian researchers have found that electrolysis using surface-modified electrodes for efficient large-scale transformation of phenol to 1,4 hydroquinone used as intermediate in the manufacturing of food preservatives, pharmaceuticals, dyes, polymers. India currently imports 1,4 hydroquinone at a heavy cost due to lack of efficient processes for conversion of phenol to 1,4 hydroquinone.
Phenol and it’s oxidized products like 1,4-hydroquinone, catechol, or resorcinol are vital and primary building blocks used in the synthesis of many medicinal and industrially used organic compounds. Especially products like 1,4 hydroquinone are used as intermediates in the manufacturing of food preservatives, pharmaceuticals, dyes, polymers, etc. In addition, oxidation of phenol leads to a huge value addition. India imports phenol worth 23.6 million USD while India spends US$56.5M for importing 1,4-hydroquinone. Conventionally, phenol oxidation is carried out by chemical methods using catalysts involving precious metals, metal oxides, and enzymes along with hazardous oxidants. But these methods suffer from many disadvantages, including incomplete conversion of starting material and lack of product selectivity along with environmental hazards.
In this background, researchers from the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences led by Dr. Bhagavatula Prasad and CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory regarded electrolysis as an effective way to carry out the oxidative transformation of phenol to 1,4 hydroquinone. This work has been published in the ‘New Journal of Chemistry’ recently.
Electrochemical organic transformations are being looked at with great interest these days because of the economic and environmental advantages they offer over conventional chemical transformation methods. As these transformations are typically carried out in an aqueous medium by just passing electricity through the substrate (in this case phenol), no environmentally hazardous oxidants/reductants are involved in this process. Though electrochemical transformations offer so many advantages, there are several practical issues, especially with respect to phenol oxidation.
For example, the conventional metal-based electrodes could not be used for this transformation as they start losing the activity over time due to the adsorption of the oxidized products on their surfaces. Furthermore, many times they lead to over oxidation of phenol resulting in lack of product selectivity and unwanted product formation (tar). Additionally, some of the electrodes also suffer with issues like physical stability and durability of the electrodes with time.
Through detailed cyclic voltametric studies, the NCL and CeNS researchers established all these difficulties could be overcome using electrodes having disordered graphene-like structures with desired number of oxygen-bearing surface functional groups such as hydroxyl (-C-OH), carboxyl (-COOH), and carbonyl (-C=O) groups. The surface modification could be achieved again by electrochemical treatment of the electrode in an acidic environment. Based on systematic studies using techniques like Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, the researchers established optimum conditions for this surface modification. With such appropriately surface-modified carbonaceous electrodes, the conversion of phenol was excellent (99%) with 87% selectivity to 1,4-hydroquinone.
The researchers are currently looking at other industrially relevant processes that could be accomplished by such environmentally benign electro-organic transformations.
12-Jan-2022: Special electro-active nanoparticles developed for potential applications in touch & acoustic sensor
The scientists have achieved δ-phase in PVDF nanoparticles at lowest possible electric field till date --- 103 times lesser electric field than the conventional method. This makes the finding more convenient for application-based commercial technologies. This work has been published recently in the journal ‘Applied Physical Letters’.
“The new method not only provides an excellent way to induce the piezoelectric δ-phase in PVDF under lowest possible electrical field till date but also enables controlling the morphologies of the nanostructures in a single step process. So, this work would open up possibilities of use of nanotechnology in this field and would open more possibilities to explore further on the application of the delta phase, which was earlier stuck due to requirement of higher electric field. In addition, it was limited to only film-based samples. So, we would score it 10/10 in terms of novelty and existing technology that we proposed,” said Dr. Mandal.
The application-based possibilities were earlier due to the requirement of high electric field. Moreover, the applications were limited to film-based devices. The current findings go beyond this and explore this phase with the new processing technique at room temperature as well as different nanostructures fabrication of this phase.
As a proof of concept, the INST team has also shown a few applications in pressure mapping sensor, acoustic sensor, and as a piezoelectric energy harvester. A piezoelectric nanogenerator was also fabricated to demonstrate the application of piezoelectric properties of these nanoparticles, and its practical applications as pressure mapping sensor, acoustic sensor, and energy harvesting studies were performed.
The high acoustic sensitivity of the device also indicates the detection ability of acoustic noises, speech signals, respiration motion, thus widening its technological applicability. Besides this, the INST team also noticed anti-fibrillizing effect when the δ-phase comprising PVDF nanoparticles were utilized, which is very essential to protect the diseases like Alzheimer creating opportunities for emerging futuristic applications in the health care sector.
5-Dec-2021: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh says, marine minerals from coastal and ocean sources will be key to India's future economy
Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, 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 an important 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 India has emerged as one of the frontline nations in marine scientific research under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and now actively engaged in exploring the resourceful ocean bed for meeting the country's future energy and metal demands. He said, the “Deep Ocean Mission” initiated by the Modi government heralds yet another horizon to various resources to enrich the “Blue Economy”.
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.
It may be recalled that in October this year, the Minister launched India’s First Manned Ocean Mission Samudrayaan 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.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that over the last seven years, the main thrust of R&D at CSIR-IMMT has been to empower Indian industries to meet the challenges of globalization by providing advanced and zero waste process know-how and consultancy services for commercial exploitation of natural resources through the public- private-partnership (PPP) approach. He said that such engagement and the technological intervention provided to industry has made CSIR-IMMT, the first choice for many of the minerals and extractive metallurgy based industries. It is also carving out a niche in processing of advanced materials for greater value addition and working on resource use efficiency of critical raw materials, he added.
The Common Research and Technology Development Hub (CRTDH) has been established at CSIR-IMMT, by the joint effort of CSIR-IMMT and Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Government of India in order to provide, technological solution, to mentor entrepreneurs/startups, alongside facilitating incubation of startups. Its primary objective is to nurture and promote innovations in MSMEs and provide them R&D or knowledge-based support in the area of new materials and chemical processes. The aim is three-fold:
- R&D & Knowledge based Support to MSMEs & Start-ups
- Mentor, nurture, collaborate, or hand-hold MSMEs to develop innovations
- Provide enabling services such as IPR support, Laboratory facilities, testing and analysis support for quality assurance, auditing of existing production processes etc.
Currently, under the 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 inception.
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 is capable of evaluating 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.