Dental implants by Delhi scientists earn PM’S praise
RESEARCHERS FROM CSMCRI HAVE ALSO DEVELOPED A PROCESS THAT COULD CREATE POTASH, USED IN FERTILISERS, FROM WASTE GENERATED IN SUGAR MILLS
NEWDELHI:PRIME Minister Narendra Modi has written to two groups of scientists congratulating them for developing indigenous technologies – a set of dental implants developed by researchers from Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences and Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and a process of making “zerowaste” potash from the waste in sugar mills developed by the researchers from Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI) in Bhavnagar, Gujarat.
Both were projects under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
“Rarely in history that the elected Head of a Nation appreciates work of its Scientists and Technologists so profoundly. Thank you very much @narendramodi @Pmoindia for your kind words, the S&T community cherishes your continued support,” said Dr Shekhar Mande, director general of CSIR.
The dental implant developed by researchers from Delhi will cost almost half that of the imported implants that are currently available in the market.
“Currently, the dental implants available in the market are imported and costs anywhere between ₹8,000-15,000. The implants we created will cost only about ₹3,500-4,000. The technology has been patented by us in India and the US. And after conducting clinical trials at MAIDS, the product has been licensed to a company for commercial manufacturing about four months back,” said Dr Mahesh Verma, the principal investigator for the project and the director-principal of MAIDS. He was recently appointed the vice chancellor of Indraprastha University.
“We remain firm in our resolve to provide the latest and the best treatment as well as make it affordable for the poor and the disadvantaged sections of the society. The indigenously developed technology would surely help make cost effective treatment available to all,” read the letter from the PM received by the scientists on Friday.
The team was able to reduce the inventory of the dental implant set by modifying the abutment.
“The surgical kit for the implants contains around 80 to 90 components, we reduced the inventory by designing the abutment in such a way that one could fit all sizes of implants. Not only patients, it will also help dental students. For the project a clean room lab was established in IIT Delhi for manufacturing the implants,” said Dr Naresh Bhatnagar, professor of mechanical engineering at IIT Delhi.
“It is very encouraging to receive such acknowledgement. We calmly and quietly keep doing our work and to realise someone is noticing and appreciating it is very elating,” he said.
The researchers from the CSIR laboratory CSMCRI developed a process that could create potash, used in fertilisers, from the waste generated from the sugar mills. Not only that, the organics generated as bi-product can be used as animal feed. The process also recovers 80% of the water used, which can then be sent back into the processing loop.
“We generated opportunity from waste. The spent wash created during the manufacturing of sugar was always a problem for the distilleries and reducing the pollution was a need. Using our process the industries can create something valuable – potash. Currently, our country imports about 5 million metric tonnes of potash to make fertilisers. If this process is implemented across India, it will reduce our import by around 10%. The cost of installing the plant will be recovered within 2.5 to 3 years,” said Dr Amitava Das, director, CSMCRI.
The technology has already been licensed to one company and the laboratory is in talks with others. “The development of such zero waste technology will help in making the distillery sector environmentally sustainable. The upscaling and validation of technology will help the distilleries to produce value-added products. Effective waste management continues to be one of our government’s key priorities,” the letter from the Prime Minister reads.
“Being a national laboratory we develop technology to solve the problems of Indian industries. We knew that the technology would have a huge impact and when that gets acknowledged by the highest body, what else can we ask for?” said Das.