Nanomaterials, vegan leather among technological innovations on display at CSIR exhibition

An air purifier that can be retrofitted to ACs, vegan leather, nanomaterials with wide-ranging applications and automated drones that do not need operators were displayed at a CSIR exhibition held here to showcase its achievements in the past decade.

The exhibition was held as part of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research's (CSIR) Foundation Day celebrations at Pragati Maidan on September 26 and 27.

It featured works of scientists from various CSIR institutes, including the Institute Of Genomics And Integrative Biology (IGIB), National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Structural Engineering Research Centre, and the Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI).

Mansi Gupta, the founder of Calm The Chaos, an ayurveda-based cosmetics company, said that such exhibitions help lend visibility to the product as well as the institutes providing technical and research support to start-ups. ''Through similar exhibitions, CSIR has helped me showcase my product across India, including in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Goa and Ahmedabad,'' she said, adding that the Indian Institute Of Integrative Medicine (IIIM), Jammu, a CSIR institute, is providing research support to her start-up.

''I have tied up with the government to test my ayurvedic products because testing in private labs is very expensive,'' she told PTI. IIIM is also helping her find seed funding.

Ravi Kaushik, the founder and CEO of Airth, a start-up producing air purifiers that can be retrofitted to ACs, is regularly engaged with CSIR labs -- the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Central Drug Research Institute and the National Physical Laboratory -- to test his initial product, a standalone air purifier unit.

Kaushik eventually pivoted to air purifiers that can be retrofitted to air conditioners.

''The relations built with them during research and development helped them understand that I am working in the domain of providing solutions for air pollution,'' he told PTI. Kaushik's start-up Airth is currently incubated with the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research which is helping him with product testing for a nominal charge.

N Usha Kiran was pursuing PhD in material sciences at another CSIR lab -- the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT) when he founded and registered his company Reseaprolabs Pvt. Ltd in 2022.

The start-up creates advanced nanomaterials composed of titanium, silicon and carbon which are termed mxene and maxphases. He has invented the flash sintering technique, drastically cutting down the time required to generate these materials.

These materials, having applications in energy and biomedical sectors and competing with graphene in terms of its electrical conductivity, can profoundly enhance the performance of Lithium-ion batteries, Usha Kiran said.

His start-up venture was recently incubated with the Innovative Technology Enabling Centre (InTEC), an incubation centre run by IMMT.

''India is full of inventions, inventors and innovations. However, there is a big gap in translating our research into practical outcomes,'' said T. Pavan Kumar, a senior scientist at IMMT, who is also involved in running InTEC.

''Usha Kiran's initiative is the 14th start-up venture, which incubated with us just 10 days back. He gets infrastructural, technical and intellectual support from us at a nominal charge. We also helped him file a patent by fast-tracking the paperwork processing,'' Kumar said.

He said the incubation centre is also involved in sensitising the community, including other agencies and institutes, about intellectual property rights and their awareness. ''This way, we also enhance our visibility and try to attract start-ups who wish to incubate with us.'' At the National Physical Laboratory (NAL), another CSIR lab, its wind tunnels are being used by private aerospace firms such as AgniKul Cosmos Private Limited.

''They need testing to validate their (aircraft) design. We do the testing and they bear the expenses charged as per CSIR guidelines,'' said Venu Ganapuram, the principal scientist at NAL, where ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 underwent 3,000 wind tunnel tests.

Even as CSIR labs and incubation centres seek to ease the burden of start-ups by providing testing and mentoring support, funding for testing and then for making the product market-ready is, however, still hard to come by, start-up founders said.

A system to address this might be in the works, said Souvik Maiti the director of CSIR's Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology which is engaged in research in genomics, molecular medicine, bioinformatics and proteomics.

''As of this moment, (CSIR) doesn't have a mechanism to fund start-ups. But we are trying to come up with a system to be able to do so. But any start-up approaching IGIB for collaboration is extended support - for research and for using our infrastructure - through guidelines set down by CSIR,'' Maiti said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)