R&D Disciplines

The R&D activities are now broadly classified into five major areas and their brief objectives/goals are given below:

Develop new generation eco-friendly processes and products in oil seeds leading to value addition
Create a basket of new generation technologies and products in spices, essential oil plant material and its commercial exploitation
Create knowledge on selected herbs of commercial potential through chemical finger printing, identification of biomarkers and bio-potency evaluation
Development of processes for commercial exploitation of bioactive phytochemicals, herbal extracts and nutraceuticals

Basic and applied research on advanced ceramics for structural and functional applications
Sol-gel synthesis of ceramic precursors for nano-particles, coatings/membranes, catalysts as well as ceramic fabrication
Developmental work in the area of high Tc super conductivity, electronic ceramics and ceramics for communication
Exploitation and value addition of renewable and non-renewable material resources and mineral based technologies
Development of new light alloys and their metal matrix composites for strategic as well as societal needs
Development of novel ceramic oxide materials
Microstructure and microchemical analysis of materials using Electron Microscopy
Materials for societal applications
Low pressure casting for the high integrating thin wall Al & Mg alloy components

Development of wide range of photofunctional molecules and nanomaterials
Design of fast switching liquid crystal devices and photoswitchable liquid crystals
Design of nonlinear optical materials, polymers, gels, luminescent and electroluminescent materials for optoelectronic applications
Development of second generation sensitizers for photodynamic therapy
Development of polymers and polymer composites with specific property profiles for eco-friendly and strategic applications
Polymeric, organic and inorganic hybrid materials
Trace and ultra-trace analysis and characterization of high purity materials, rare earth oxides and recovery of valuable metals
Isolation and synthesis of new bioactive molecules and development of novel state of the art synthetic methodologies for the fine chemical industry

Design and development of industrial effluent treatment processes & plants
Design and development of biological treatment systems for liquid & solid wastes
Design and development of odour and VOC control systems
Environmental impact assessment studies and services
Development of software tools for understanding and design of molecules, materials and processes
Development of technical software for commercial use and to provide computational support to other groups
Bio and Chemo-informatics
Scale-up of laboratory scale processes to bench scale levels
Chemical engineering investigations on unit operations and unit processes for minerals and other R&D programmes of the laboratory
Development of decentralized processing systems for rural applications
Analytical protocols and emission control of POPs (Persistent organic pollutants)

Development of bio-based processes and products for the production of industrially important enzymes, biofuels and biopolymers
Microbial biodiversity and mycobacterium research

CSIR – National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST)