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Rourkela, June 16, 2026: Researchers at the National Institute of Technology Rourkela’s Ceramic Engineering Department have found a new, low-cost way to extract pollutants from industrial wastewater and remove dyes. This breakthrough could help solve a major environmental problem related to the disposal of industrial wastes. This study was led by Associate Professor of Ceramic Engineering, Prof. Sunipa Bhattacharyya, and research associates, Susant Mohapatra and Sourav Ranjan Satpathy. Certain industries, including textiles and printing, produce a lot of colored chemical wastes that end up in water bodies. These wastes disturb our aquatic ecosystems and adversely affect human health. The current technologies for treating wastewater are usually expensive, require a lot of energy, and can produce secondary waste.
To solve this problem, the research team from NIT Rourkela developed a water-based ceramic adsorbent that included industrial by-products like Fly Ash, Ground Granulated Blast-Furnace Slag (GGBS), and kaolin clay. Fly Ash is a by-product of burning coal in a thermal power plant. GGBS is a by-product of a blast furnace in the iron and steel industry. Both of these by-products are generated in huge volumes and pose waste disposal and environmental management challenges.
The technology developed recently utilizes these by-products from industry and makes a ceramic adsorbent that preferentially removes Methylene Blue, a very popular dye in wastewaters. Prof. Sunipa Bhattacharyya noted how their raw kaolin clay is a step above the heat-treated metakaolin used in most geopolymer-based adsorbents. “Because we avoided the heating step, which requires significant energy, we are able to make the process more sustainable and economical.”
Laboratory tests showed the ceramic adsorbent was more than 95 percent effective at removing Methylene Blue dye from contaminated water. The innovation is significantly cheaper, with an estimated cost of ₹25 to ₹50 per kilogram compared to other ceramic adsorbents. This technology makes the ceramic adsorbent a cost-effective method compared to other methods of treating wastewater. The research shows the goals and objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as this research can provide advances in clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) and is published in the scientific journal ChemistrySelect.
The research team aims to use other waste materials in the generation of adsorbents, particularly to remove other industrial contaminants. The technology can address the growing global problem of water scarcity by providing an affordable and effective wastewater treatment for industry. This example shows the potential of practices used in the circular economy by transforming a sector's industrial byproduct into a resource to address an environmental problem in a new sector.
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