Bhubaneswar: National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) has strengthened its R&D initiatives through strategic collaborations with leading national research institutions for developing scalable and commercially viable solutions for industrial residue valorisation and critical mineral recovery.
As part of this endeavour, NALCO CMD Brijendra Pratap Singh Tuesday inaugurated a first of its kind indigenous pilot plant for processing bituminous coal fly ash for the recovery of multiple value-added products at the NALCO Research & Technology Centre (NRTC), Bhubaneswar.
Jagdish Arora, Director (Projects & Technical), Dr. Tapas Kumar Pattanayak, Director (HR), Anil Kumar Singh, Director (Commercial), NALCO, DrRamanuj Narayan, Director, CSIR-IMMT; and Prof. Jnyana Ranjan Mohanty, Registrar, KIIT, were present on the occasion.
The 50 kg per day capacity fly ash processing pilot plant has been designed and established by CSIR-IMMT and KIIT, with support from NALCO, CSIR and the Ministry of Mines, Government of India. The pilot facility is based on a jointly patented process developed by CSIR-IMMT and NALCO for the holistic utilisation of coal fly ash. The process enables recovery of multiple value-added products, including alumina, calcium silicate for ceramic applications, quartz residue with potential applications in glassmaking, and an iron hydroxide residue enriched in rare earth elements (REE), including scandium.
