SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, June 15: A two-member research team of IIT (ISM) Dhanbad has developed water-repellent biodegradable jute to save food grains from decay and protect the adverse environmental impact of plastic bags.
The two-member team comprising Dr Aditya Kumar, associate professor of the chemical engineering department and Dr Poonam Chauhan, a research scholar of the same department used a silane-based coating to make the jute water repellent. They completed the research in two and a half years and later also filed the patent application for the same in November last year.
They began working on the project on Feb 12, 2020.
They have developed water-repellent but biodegradable jute that has a low carbon footprint compared to plastic sacks or bags, used in the packaging of food grains and others.
Explaining the process for the development of water-repellent jute, Prof Adiyta Kumar, said that they used inexpensive materials to develop the new jute and coating was done chemically via the spread method under ambient conditions without using any sophisticated instrument.
“The coating is environment friendly and biodegradable, reducing the chance of any negative impact on the environment of human health,” said Prof Kumar and he added that the coated jute is mechanically durable and moreover the coating didn’t affect the weight or thickness of the Jute.
Shedding light on the advantages of water-repellent jute over the traditional one, Prof Kumar said the water-repellent jute shows self-cleaning properties that could help to improve the stains and dust contamination issues.
“The bags prepared from the jute can be used to protect the grains from moisture in a highly humid environment,” said Kumar. He added that the water-repellent jute may find extended application such as geotextile where moisture or water problem arises. It is cost-effective as the coating material costs around Rs 70 per litre,” he said.
Prof Kumar said though the newly developed jute has only been prepared on a lab scale but we may seek commercialization later on once the idea is patented.
