Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL) is an Indian defence laboratory of the

Defence Research and Development Organisation The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is an agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India, charged with the military's research and development, head ...

(DRDO). Located at Ambernath, in

Thane Thane (; previously known as Thana, List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1996) is a metropolitan city located on the northwestern side of the list of Indian states, state of Maharashtra in India and on ...

district, Maharashtra. It develops materials and alloys for Naval use, and is a single-window agency for all materials requirement of the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy (IN) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Navy, maritime and Amphibious warfare, amphibious branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of the Naval Staff (India), Chief ...

. NMRL is organized under the Naval Research & Development Directorate of DRDO. The present director of NMRL is Shri Prashant T Rojatkar.

History

NMRL was established in 1953 as the Naval Chemical and Metallurgical Laboratory, an in-house laboratory of the Navy, located at the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai. It was brought under the administrative control of DRDO in the early 1960s. The laboratory is located in its own technical-cum residential complex at Ambernath, Maharashtra. The laboratory still has its erstwhile infrastructure intact in Naval Dockyard, Mumbai, without any physical scientific or administrative presence.

Areas of work

Source: * Fuel Cell Power Pack Technology * Advanced Protection Technology in Marine Environment * Electrochemistry & Electrochemical Processes * Polymer and Elastomer Science and Technology including Stealth Material * Processing Technologies for Speciality Metallic and Non-metallic Materials * Chemical and Biological Control of Marine Environment

Projects and products

Technologies for military use

* Air independent propulsion (AIP) - for use in submarines of the

Technologies for civilian use

* Bio-emulsifier - for Bio-remediation of floating oil. * Arsenic removal kit - NMRL has developed a low-cost

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

removal filter to remove arsenic from contaminated drinking water. The filter is made of

stainless steel Stainless steel, also known as inox, corrosion-resistant steel (CRES), or rustless steel, is an iron-based alloy that contains chromium, making it resistant to rust and corrosion. Stainless steel's resistance to corrosion comes from its chromi ...

, and the filter medium is a processed waste of the steel industry. The filter works on the principle of co-precipitation and

adsorption Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions or molecules from a gas, liquid or dissolved solid to a surface. This process creates a film of the ''adsorbate'' on the surface of the ''adsorbent''. This process differs from absorption, in which a ...

, which is followed by filtration through treated sand. The complete filter costs Rs. 500, has a life of 5 years and does not require any electricity to run. After six months of testing in 24 Paraganas District in

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

, the technology was given to NGOs for productionizing.

References

External links

NMRL Home Page