State-owned aluminium major Nalco is set to establish a Research and Technology Centre here by the middle of 2012 to help augment growth of aluminium mining in the country.
The Navratna PSU has acquired 18 acres of land at Gothapatna on the outskirts of the city to build its 'world class' research and technology centre, Nalco's Chairman-cum-Managing Director A K Srivastava said.
"Nalco will invest Rs 88 crore in the first phase of its implementation and once the centre is set up, we need not depend on foreign countries for technical support," he said.
To start with, the proposed research centre would work on alumina, aluminium and bauxite, which could be extended to other fields, he said.
Nalco has already undertaken at least 15 collaborative R&D projects with different research institutes, Srivastava said.
Some of the major R&D efforts that are implemented at Nalco are: development and production of different grades of specialty alumina and special types of resin for condensate polishing at refinery, also development of in-line degasser.
"Another project for making building bricks from red mud is under implementation where we are expecting a breakthrough in commercialisation," another execuitve said.
The company has also undertaken a project as part of Indo-Russian collaboration for extraction of alumina from low grade bauxite, which is at its advanced stage of completion, he said.
