Bhubaneswar: CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (CSIR-IMMT), Bhubaneswar, has signed separate memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with Engineers India Limited (EIL) and battery materials firm LOHUM to accelerate the development and commercialisation of indigenous technologies for critical minerals.The collaborations aim to bridge the gap between laboratory research and industrial deployment amid rising demand for critical minerals driven by electric mobility, renewable energy, electronics and strategic sectors, CSIR-IMMT said in a statement on Friday.Under the agreement with the EIL, CSIR-IMMT will collaborate with the public sector engineering consultancy on research and development projects related to critical and strategic minerals, with a focus on engineering design, scale-up and industrial implementation.The partnership will also support technical knowledge exchange, capacity-building programmes, and pilot-scale and commercial deployment projects. The MoU was signed in New Delhi by EIL director (technical) Rajiv Agarwal and CSIR-IMMT director Ramanuj Narayan.The second MoU, signed with LOHUM, focuses on developing indigenous technologies for producing critical rare earth materials used in high-performance permanent magnets. The partnership will work on technologies for metallised neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), a key raw material used in permanent magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines and other advanced applications.Officials said the collaboration would combine CSIR-IMMT’s expertise in minerals and materials technology with LOHUM’s capabilities in battery materials and resource recovery to speed up technology validation and commercialisation.The CSIR-IMMT has been developing technologies for the extraction, refining, metal production and recycling of critical minerals from primary resources, industrial residues and secondary sources. The institute has also set up pilot-scale infrastructure for rare earth element extraction and processing, and hosts the Centre of Excellence on Critical Minerals under National Centre for Minerals and Materials, officials said.
