The coal beneficiation process requires efficient separation of < 0.25 mm. The coal having size less than 0.25 mm should be less than 10 % in the feed otherwise it puts froth difficulties in the existing coal processing plants. The conventional size separation techniques are not very efficient in the fines separation and the misplacement of finer size particles in the coarser part (particles less than 0.25mm in stream containing 0.25mm to 0.5mm)can go up to 30%. The challenge here is to develop a scalable separation process for particles at sizes near around 0.25mm with minimum misplacement (less than 10%) of finer particles to the coarser side.
( Mentor: Sachinraj D , E-Mail: sachinraj.d@tatasteel.com)

Tuyere is one of the integral components of the blast furnace as it facilitates the injection of preheated blast into the furnace for combustion of the coke. Tuyeres are made of high purity copper and are water-cooled to ensure effective heat extraction. These copper tuyeres are exposed to temperature up to 2000 °C (direct liquid metal contact), erosion from fine pulverized coals, corrosion and oxidation in environment containing chloride and sulphide ions. This extreme environment causes premature failure of tuyeres reducing the service life and loss in terms of productivity. This is a chronic problem faced by integrated steel plants globally and we seek innovative idea or alternate material to mitigate this concern.
( Mentor: Kaushal Kishore ,E-Mail: kaushal.kishore3@tatasteel.com)

The technology of designing porous metallic foam is evolving at a rapid pace. This research area is interdisciplinary and requires chemistry, physics and materials engineering to be applied jointly to develop integrated solutions that ensure that these materials can be produced economically with the required quality and reproducibility and that their integration into engineering components. Metallic foams are considered important for functional applications like filters, shock absorbers in automobiles, catalysts carrier, heat exchangers, flame arrestors etc. Iron based foams have been considered as an alternative material to aluminum foams, because steel has higher strength, higher capability to absorb energy and is generally cheaper than aluminum. However, steel have high density than aluminum, and its much higher melting temperature makes low-cost production of foams a challenge. A metal foam is advantageous from a 3-D skeleton and providing abundant active metal sites and is considered crucial also for developing an economical and highly efficient water splitting electrocatalyst. The invention deals with the idea to fabricate pure metallic iron foams using various grades of iron powders (with different size and morphology of powders). Searching a path breaking idea which can enable production of iron foam with a porosity of ~50% and average pore diameter ~ 500 um.
( Mentor: Abhijeet Premkumar Moon , E-Mail: abhijeet.moon@tatasteel.com)

Lime/limestone is very an important and cheaper material available on the earth so far as a fluxing agent for hot metal dephosphorization in BOF process. Addition of lime/limestone during BOF process helps in formation of slag, maintaining the required basicity, improving refining and prevents refractory wear. Production of 1 Ton of crude steel in BOF process requires approximate 55-65 kg of lime depending on hot metal quality and plant practice. As steel production in India is witnessing a significant growth, the requirement of lime/limestone will increase commensurately leading to the depletion of natural resource. We are searching for a novel fluxing agent to replace lime/limestone, which are economically feasible and readily available for the use.
( Mentor:Prakash Gupta , E-Mail: prakash.gupta3@tatasteel.com)

Perovskite solar cells have shown remarkable progress in recent years with rapid increases in efficiency. However still it is challenging to make high efficiency Perovskite solar cells mainly due to (i) Perovskites decompose when they react with moisture and oxygen and exposed to light/ hea which limits its stability. (ii) Producing uniform, high-performance perovskite material in a large-scale manufacturing environment is difficult. (iv) Set up a Quality and performance testing protocol. Therefore, we are inviting proposal to develop efficient (>25%) Perovskite solar cells with a minimum 20 year life with a suitable performance testing/ simulation method.( Mentor: Nemai Chandra Gorain , E-Mail: nemai@tatasteel.com)

Harmful emissions from transport have doubled in the last fifty years. There is an increasing demand to reduce the emissions from public transportation. In this context, a promising concept called the Hyperloop proposed by Elon Musk (Musk, 2013) has the potential to solve this problem in a faster and more sustainable manner. The draft report has identified steel is the most suitable material for the loop. However, there are challenges in using the steel for Hyperloop. The tube is continuous, hence low thermal expansion is required in operating conditions, specifically in India. Therefore, the challenge here is to develop steel for hyperloop with low thermal expansion besides good damping capacity. The work involves fundamental study to understand the effect of alloying additions in reducing thermal expansion using first-principal models and developing alloys at laboratory or pilot scale to evaluate the properties.
( Mentor: Appa Rao Chintha , E-Mail: apparao@tatasteel.com)

In cold rolling mills, Colour coated GI sheets are produced with the polymer-based coatings of primer and paint with the thickness of (5 -7) µm and (15-20) µm, on the top side, and of (5-7) µm and (7-8) µm on the bottom side, respectively. Online measurement of the coating thickness measurement is very important in terms of quality assurance and optimum utilisation of coating material. The system is expected to be Non-Destructive and online (excluding radiation-based technology), where the line speed is 150 metre per minute and the minimum expected accuracy in terms of resolution is 1 µm.
( Mentor: Keerthana George , E-Mail: keerthana.george@tatasteel.com)

The production of modern Dual Phase steel (DP) places high demands on the thermal process in annealing and hot-dip galvanizing lines. In particular, automotive industry mandates homogeneous properties of the steel strips from coil to coil and along the entire length of each coil. Such homogenous material can only be produced with the feedback from an online measurement system for microstructure. Processed DP grades consist of two or more microstructure phases to obtain the required material properties. During the heat treatment, the fraction of austenite in front of the rapid cooling determines the amount of secondary, hard phases formed during subsequent cooling stages. In DP, the secondary phase fraction determines the strength of the final product. It is of utmost importance to measure the phase fraction online before the rapid cooling zone for a closed loop feedback system to achieve the desired phases. In this context, we are looking for an innovative methodology that can be installed inside a furnace before rapid cooling zone, where the temperature of the sheet is around 900 °C, and the solution should exclude radiation-based techniques.
( Mentor: Bonikila Pradeep Reddy , E-Mail: bonikila.reddy@tatasteel.com)

In every economy, pipeline networks play a crucial role for the logistics of water, oil and gases, and other substances. These pipeline networks run across remote locations of the country. In one hand, their ability remain under the grounds remote locations enables carrying pipeline goods, but the same has become a challenge for its maintenance. So, as a solution we are looking for a smart pipeline crawler, which can run inside a pipeline for long distances (minimum 5 km). It can be powered by wires or wirelessly. In case of a wired crawler, consider the weight of wires that must be dragged during its travel. The crawler should have a fool-proof contingency provision too. Preferably, the crawler should be capable of navigating in the branches of the pipeline at least two branches. The crawler should have the provision for camera, and GPS for tracking
( Mentor: R.Shunmuga Sundaram , E-Mail: rs.sundaram@tatasteel.com)

Organic (or secondary) coating are applied on different grade of steels for corrosion protection and other functional properties. Most of these organic coatings are based on thermosetting polymers (e.g. epoxy, polyurethane, silanes etc) which cannot be recycled in future. Here, we are looking for developing a recyclable/thermoplastic polymer based composite coating on steel which can be recycled afterwards.
( Mentor: Kuntal Sarkar , E-Mail: kuntal.sarkar@tatasteel.com)

Graphene is a two-dimensional nano material with remarkable chemical and physical properties. It consists of a single layer of graphite which is essentially a single atom thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. This single layer of graphene has a large surface area of 2650 m²/g. It has high electrical conductivity than silver and is thermally stable up to 3300 °C. Graphene has a tensile strength around 200 times that of steel. However, since it is not a structural material it can only be used as additives to improve the mechanical properties of materials.

Various organic precursors have been used to prepare graphene and other carbon-based nanomaterials. The liquid phase chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) method has been used to produce graphene film of copper surface in a controlled manner. The LPCVD method uses a mixture of organic precursor such as ethanol and inert argon gas is passed onto the surface of a copper sample at around 900 °C. We have developed a CVD setup which can use solid precursor to produce graphene powder. Unlike the LPCVD process where graphene is produced as films of metal surfaces, here, graphene is produced in bulk. The problem of this challenge is to modify and optimize the setup to produce graphene from alcohol in bulk. The first part of the challenge will constitute how to modify the machine to incorporate liquid precursors. The second part will have preparation of graphene and its characterization and the optimization of various parameters.
( Mentor: Dr. Trilochan Bagarti , E-Mail: trilochan.bagarti@tatasteel.com)

Water resources are mostly affected wastewater sourced pollution mainly by the agriculture chemicals (pesticides) in particular, organochlorine compounds represent an important group of persistent organic pollutants that act as possible carcinogens and mutagens.Graphene oxide (GO) being one of the important graphene derivatives has demonstrated to be a prospective material for the filtration of pesticides, because it enhances adsorption of pesticides due to its relatively large specific area, abundant functional groups, and extraordinary mechanical strength.In this direction utilizing the potential of graphene-based material and its nanocomposites, seeking an innovative way to extract organic impurities from wastewater.
( Mentor: Dr. Vimal Kumar Sharma, E-Mail: vimal.sharma1@tatasteel.com)

Quite a variety of hazardous contaminants remain present in waste machine oils. These contaminants include mostly benzene and polycyclic aromatics. If released inappropriately into the environment, they can cause serious harm to our biosystem (e.g. animals, plants fishes etc.) in numerous ways. Graphene, a single atomic layer from a graphite sheet, is one of the most interesting and important materials being investigated all over the world because it has huge number of applications almost in every field of technology and science. If graphene can be synthesized from waste carbon sources, it would be of immense benefit to the world.

This process of graphene preparation can be done by Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) or normal pyrolysis. In a high temperature range, samples are prepared at various temperatures, with an increment in temperature in steps. The material is then deposited via the CVD process. The depositions for various temperatures can be checked by spectrophotometric analytical methods for potential presence of graphene. Generally multi-layered graphene comes around 3500C. It would be highly beneficial if we can adapt this method of converting the harmful waste materials into graphene for various applications.

Before starting these process, we can characterize what are the other impurities present in the oil and how can we remove those. In another way, we can use those impurities (mostly metals) for some value added graphene composites for more applications.
( Mentor: Dr. Amartya Bhattacharya & Dr. Chandrani Pramanik, E-Mail: amartya.bhattacharyya@tatasteel.com, chandrani.pramanik@tatasteel.com)

Ceramics Coating or joining on Metal surfaces: Joining of metal to ceramic is a challenge area. Metals are conducting, high density materials. Ceramics are insulating and low-density materials, however when they are coated onto metals as in case of biomedical implant, they often fail to adhere. There are applications where we need both ceramic and metals with proper interlayer sealing (e.g. -vacuum feed through etc.). Due to their thermal expansion co-efficient mismatch, it is difficult to join both. The available technologies are metallization or active metal brazing. But each process has their limitations. The challenge is to get better joining for high temperature industrial and Medical applications.
( Mentor: Kingshuk Poddar ,E-Mail: kingshuk.poddar@tatasteel.com )

Ceramic Composites for diversified application: Ceramics are brittle in nature, but Ceramics are best wear resistant materials. If the Ceramics can be converted into Composite keeping same high wear resistant property, could be wonder material for several impact and wear application where presently ceramic cannot be used as it cannot withstand impact. The challenge is to convert the Ceramics into Composites for more diversified applications. The intended application would involve medical, public health & sanitation and clean energy, hence choice of non-toxic fibres and resins (glass/carbon fibres, polymers) have to be borne in mind
( Mentor: Kingshuk Poddar ,kingshuk.poddar@tatasteel.com )

The application of polymer matrix-based fibre reinforced composites is limited by the temperature the resin can withstand which is generally in the range 200-250 o C. The application temperature can sometimes be enhanced by using exotic polymers which are associated with higher cost due to availability issues. Due to low application temperature, FRP-Composites could not be used in a multitude of applications for industrial and infrastructure sector. On the other hand, high temperature resistant materials (mostly oxide ceramics) are abundantly available in the nature. The body of knowledge at the intersection of these two materials (FRP-Composites and refractories) provides us the opportunity to achieve an unprecedented set of properties by developing a new-age materials combining the properties of both. This project will require fundamental material development work through a design of experiment comprising of a set of selected precursor materials to achieve higher corrosion resistance, lighter weight and at the same time resistance to higher temperature e.g., up to 1000 o C.
( Mentor: Sudip Bose, E-Mail: sudip.bose@tatasteel.com )

Glass fibre is an integral load-bearing component of GFRP-Composites which provides it the strength. The supply chain of glass fibre in India is dominated by few foreign manufacturers and hence the glass fibre manufacturers appropriate higher value from the value chain by exercise greater bargaining power. The logical solution can be the adoption of abundantly available natural fibres as an alternate to glass fibres. But natural fibre is associated with inconsistency in properties due to the absence of lack of repeatability in the structure across the dimension. This problem can be solved by developing a material and/or a process which if used to treat the natural fibres can improve the consistency in fibre properties making it a techno-economic alternate to the synthetic glass fibres. Once developed, this can bring in sustainable competitive advantage to the Indian Composite Manufacturers.
( Mentor: Sudip Bose, E-Mail: sudip.bose@tatasteel.com )

Highway CRASH Barrier with Glass Reinforced Polymer Composite: Traditionally Carbon Steel is used in Highways Crash Barrier design, the main purpose of which is to divert the vehicles back on the Track in the event of any accident or collision. The Crash Barrier design requires a material and design solution which offers sufficient energy absorption capability, minimum deflection and reduced accident severity index (ASI) during impact. The design of Crash Barriers is governed by IRC guidelines: EN 1317 – Part 2 & MASH.

Although Carbon Steel meets the above-mentioned requirement, however there is an opportunity to offer an alternate material and design solution which could enhance the performance (deflection and energy) and reduce weight, cost and accident severity index further. Additionally, mild steel has a problem of corrosion and pilferage related issues. Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) Composites can be a suitable alternative considering its better strength to weight ratio and good corrosion resistance properties. Due to inherent insulation properties of GFRP composites, it also eliminates any kind of electrical hazards. Crash Barrier manufactured with GFRP Composites can also offer better aesthetics as well as reduces the chance of pilferage.

However due to relatively low stiffens of GFRP Composites it generally requires higher thickness to match the Mild Steel performance of Crash Barrier which makes the GFRP Crash Barrier solution expensive compared to existing mild steel offering. Hence an innovative Design/Technology /Manufacturing solution using GFRP Composites is sought which can make the offering cost effective compared to existing Mild Steel solution.

( Mentor:Sumit Pratihar , E-Mail: sumit.pratihar@tatasteel.com)