Hon'ble Union Minister of S&T Dr Jitendra Singh visited CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune on 21 August 2022 during which he inaugurated the Bisphenol-A (BPA) pilot plant facility and addressed the staff and students of CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune.
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an important feedstock for producing epoxy resins, polycarbonate, and other engineering plastics. The global market for Bisphenol-A is projected to reach 7.1 million tons by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 2% over 2020-2027. The total estimated annual demand of 1,35,000 tons in India is imported today. CSIR-NCL has developed a continuous catalytic pilot scale process for the production of BPA under CSIR's Bulk Chemicals mission programme. Successful pilot plant trials have been completed continuously 24x7 for nearly 45 days. Nearly complete conversion (90- 99%) of the raw material (acetone) was achieved at steady state operation. The catalyst used in the process is robust. A highly pure colourless BPA is produced in the continuous process.
The uniqueness of the method developed by CSIR-NCL is a novel downstream process technology, which makes this indigenous technology competitive with global benchmarks. This technology will enable import substitution of this essential raw material and help in India's Atmanirbhar initiative. The process is ready for technology transfer and further co-development to a commercial scale.
Hon'ble Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, in his address, highlighted the role of CSIR in innovations and in setting up start-ups and promoting them. He talked about the key initiatives the government has taken up, including the Digital Health, Hydrogen Mission, Aroma Mission, Deep Ocean Mission, etc., which have laid the road map for a new India. He pointed out that we must revisit our approach to understand how we cultivate and sustain in the coming times and strengthen the start-ups. India is a heterogeneous country, and it is time to link academics, research, and industry. Agri-Tech start-ups are not sufficiently emphasised and are hugely unexplored in the country. Youngsters today realise thepotential of these unknown areas for a better career. He asserted that the bioeconomy would be one of the main pillars of the economy of India when we talk of the next twenty-five years.
Dr Ashish Lele, Director, CSIR-NCL, in his welcome remarks highlighted the significant contributions made by the lab in the fields of Green Chemistry, Agro-Techniques, Circular Chemistry, and Biochemical Research.
Earlier, Hon'ble Minister Dr Jitendra Singh visited KPIT Ltd and inspected the Fuel Cell bus and facilities. The first truly indigenously developed Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus was demonstrated last year at the Sentient Labs, an R&D innovation lab, built on technologies incubated by KPIT Technologies Ltd. The Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology has been developed in collaboration with CSIR-NCL and CSIR-CECRI (Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi).
