Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL) is an Indian defence laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Located at Ambernath, in

Thane Thane (; also known as Thana, the official name until 1996) is a metropolitan city in Maharashtra, India. It is situated in the north-eastern portion of the Salsette Island. Thane city is entirely within Thane taluka, one of the seven talukas ...

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 is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates sig ...

. 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

* 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

Facilities

Projects and Products

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 with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...

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

stainless steel Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...

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

co-precipitation In chemistry, coprecipitation (CPT) or co-precipitation is the carrying down by a precipitate of substances normally soluble under the conditions employed. Analogously, in medicine, coprecipitation is specifically the precipitation of an unbound " ...

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 f ...

, 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: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

, the technology was given to NGOs for productionizing.

References

External links

NMRL Home Page