THE
government okayed a five-year national nano science and technology mission recently
with a Rs.1,000-crore funding. Where are we in the field today and where
do we go from here?
India missed the microelectronic revolution of the 1970s
and the 1980s. It also failed to invest
sufficiently in the rapidly advancing
materials sciences and technology and, as a result, today it
lags well behind
in these fields of economic importance. As science progressed into the 1990s,
the importance of the emerging area of nanotechnology was becoming quite
apparent to the
Indian scientific community. But policy initiatives for
a publicly funded national programme were slow
in coming. One had to wait
until October 2001, when the Nano Science and Technology Initiative
(NSTI)
was launched by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), largely owing
to the drive
of C.N.R. Rao, the well-known materials sciences expert at
the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced
Scientific Research (JNCASR) in
Bangalore and a pioneer in nano science in the country.
This is not to
say that there was no Indian nanoscience work at all prior to the setting up of
the NSTI.
As in the other areas in which India had missed the bus earlier,
isolated research work was happening
even almost three decades ago. In the
late 1970s the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
(TIFR) of the Department
of Atomic Energy (DAE) was carrying out studies in the application of fine-grained
nano-crystalline materials in microwave and piezoelectric devices. In the 1980s,
the Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur was synthesising ceramic
oxide nanoparticles. The researchers
attempted industrial application of
magnesium and aluminium oxide nanopowders in the cement industry.
During
the same period, A.N. Maitra of Delhi University's Chemistry Department was engaged
in the
preparation of inorganic nanoparticles in the aqueous core of reverse
micelle droplets. According
to Maitra, these are nanoscale droplets and
nanoparticles formed in their core also have narrow
size distribution. Nanoparticles
of copper oxalate, yttrium oxalate and barium oxalate were produced
in this
way so that they could be sintered at much lower temperatures to yield the compound
yttrium-barium-copper oxide for high-temperature superconductivity studies.
Such activities were, however, few and far between. And definitely not
within the new paradigm
of nanotechnology that has emerged in recent years
that cuts across disciplines. The NSTI, with
an earmarked funds, sought
to remedy the situation with the following broad objectives: support
priority
areas of research in the field, strengthen characterisation and infrastructure
facilities at the
national level, generate trained manpower and promote
interface between universities/institutions
and industry.
But even
with the NSTI in place, the level of funding has been sub-critical as compared
to China
with which India inevitably tends to be compared. In 2002, for
example, compared to China's
$200 million, India spent a mere Rs.15 crores.
Over the four and a half years of the NSTI, a total
of about Rs.120 crores
has been spent, much of which has gone towards basic research
projects and
related infrastructure, the implementation of which is overseen by a National
Expert Committee headed by C.N.R. Rao.
"China is way ahead,"
C.N.R. Rao points out. "With the small investment, we have tried to use the
money as wisely as possible and do our best. Unless we invest more in people and
institutions,
it is going to be difficult to catch up with China. I cannot,
therefore, say we will come out of it.
What will certainly happen is that
a number of laboratories and educational institutions will develop
some
expertise in the field," he adds.
Besides funding about 100 basic
science projects to date (worth about Rs.60 crores), part of the
money (about
Rs.20 crores) has gone towards establishing six centres for nanoscience at institutions
such as the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and the different
IITs, six centres for
nanotechnology each aimed at producing a product or
a device within a reasonable time-frame and
two national instrumentation/characterisation
facilities. In all, 14 national institutions, including seven
IITs, and
10 universities have been supported under the NSTI.
Indian industry, traditionally,
has been a reluctant investor in research and development (R&D) and
this has been true particularly of emerging areas such as nanotechnology. Except
for some interest
in nano drug delivery systems (for example, five based
on patented technologies of Maitra), there
has not been much proactive industrial
interest in nanotechnology. Indeed, a technology for
large-scale production
of metal nanoparticles developed at IIT, Kharagpur, could not find any
taker
in Indian industry but the Malaysian government reportedly found it attractive
enough to invest in.
"I have seen two big nanotechnology meetings
organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry
(CII) and the Associated
Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) recently
and I do
not understand why there is so much interest in having India-foreign collaborations,"
says Maitra. "Do you think these foreign companies are interested in
exposing their intellectual property
to us?" he asks.
Significantly,
at the Millennium Summit on Nanotechnology and Biotechnology organised by ASSOCHAM
in March, the declaration adopted included the following: "ASSOCHAM believes
that these technologies
possess in-built power to serve the society with
better and cheaper products, improved health care
and create significant
employment. India has the potential of becoming a health care centre of the world.
Towards achieving this successfully... the import of these technologies
for health care centres should
be given financial support at attractive
rates."
"The chain of activities - innovative nano-based formulation,
animal experiments, toxicity studies,
clinical trials - take five to 10
years. Perhaps no industry wants to take the risk of time, effort
and monetary
consequences. They should realise nothing is available on a platter; you have
to
build your own castle," adds Maitra, who has already obtained 11
patents for nano-based
drug delivery technologies, of which five are United
States patents. "The reformulation of drugs in
targetable nano-based
devices is not only inexpensive but can be optimised in the least possible
time,"
Maitra points out. "In the background of the new patent regime, more importance
should
be given for developing newer nano-based formulations of off-patented
drugs and have control
over the nano-drug delivery technology," he
says.
"Indian industry has no long-term patience. But some change
is visible and some people are talking
now," says A.K. Sood of the
IISc, who led the exciting discovery of voltage generation induced by
liquid
and gas flow through single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) in 2002, a concept that could
lead to
an entirely new class of nanosensors (Frontline, February 14, 2003,
and September 10, 2004). Two
sensors based on liquid flow through nanotubes
have been patented: one, an accelerometer
for measuring vibrations in solids
including the earth and the other for sensing underwater vibrations.
According
to Sood, although some Indian entrepreneurs showed interest in liquid-flow-based
sensors,
no licence agreement has been formalised yet.
The analogous
gas-flow-based sensor has, however, generated greater interest. This technology
has been transferred to Trident Metrologies Inc., a non-resident Indian-owned
U.S.-based company,
for application in gas flow in semiconductor and chemical
industries. The conventional method
for measuring industrial gas flow measurements
through pipes and so on is by an indirect
measurement of resistance change
in heated coils. Sensors based on gas flow in nanotubes
seem to provide
better measurement accuracy and the flow velocity range over which the device
works is also greater. Trident has already developed a prototype based on Sood
Effect, as it
has now been christened.
For the few Indian entrepreneurs
who are prepared to partner publicly funded institutions by putting
in money,
the DST has a scheme that enables such institution-industry linkages as public-private
partnership projects and those that fall under the nano category are being
funded through the NSTI.
So far three such institution-industry collaborative
ventures in specific areas of nanotechnology,
together worth about Rs.40
crores of funding, have been identified. Besides, a couple of
industry-institution
partnerships for developing nano drug delivery systems have been funded
under the New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) programme
of the
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
India's
achievements
What are the achievements made by Indian scientists with
the limited funding under the NSTI?
"There has been some very good
work from some of the Indian laboratories, particularly
from Bangalore,
in synthesising and characterising a large variety of new materials and also
discovering
two or three important new phenomena," says C.N.R. Rao. Indeed, the discovery
of the unique Y-junction nanotubes comes from C.N.R. Rao's group at the
JNCASR.
There has been a significant increase in the number of publications
from India in the field but the
number is not very large as in the case
of China. According to C.N.R. Rao, compared to about 100 papers
from India
in major journals since the NSTI began, the Chinese contribute more than twice
that number
every year. As fractions of worldwide output, compared to Chinese
contribution of 20-30 per cent,
Indian contribution is less than 5 per cent.
"In areas such as nanowires, the Chinese contribution
would be as much
as 50 per cent," says C.N.R. Rao.
"The numbers are certainly
large in China but in terms of quality we are at about the same level," feels
Sood. "Our quality is yet to attain an international level. For that the
numbers have to grow when a few
will cross that threshold. Earlier there
were not many people and now the base has certainly grown and,
with the
widespread availability of equipment such the atomic force microscope (AFM), quite
professional
too. Our strength is in the possibility of mobilising large
numbers and that is why I feel positive," he says.
A lot of groups,
according to him, have started something interesting, if not very exciting, much
of
which may be preparation-chemistry-oriented. "What is important
is to do highly controlled
experiments and measurements, sophisticated lithography
and physics-based technology using
molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) like methods,"
says Sood. "The problem we will be facing is that if
you are starting
now, the field has just exploded and there are very smart people all over. It
will be
a challenge to break that barrier."
Brij Mohan Arora,
a materials and electronics scientist at the TIFR, echoes similar views. "The
national
initiative has resulted in supporting a large variety of problems
though there are not as many
basic studies. Nevertheless it has created
an awareness about techniques. The immediate
applicability of nanotechnology
in chemistry, drugs and biology has generated a great deal of
interest and
an atmosphere of enthusiasm. There may not be too many achievements to showcase
yet, but the hope of the initiative has been to lift that level," he says.
The initiative has also certainly helped in spawning equipment and instrumentation
for material
characterisation in institutions across the country. "While
big tools such as MBE or near field
microscope or optical tweezers have
been given only to a few places, lots of places now have
AFM, Scanning Tunnelling
Microscope (STM), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Scanning
Electron
Microscope (SEM) and small angle and large angle X-ray facilities," points
out Sood, who
is a member of the Rao Committee as well. "But to encourage
controlled measurements and
sophisticated methods of production, we need
more of MBEs, ultra high vacuum STMs and so on.
There is not a single foundry
in the country. As a result, nanoelectronics has hardly taken off," says
Sood.
Outside of the NSTI, nanotechnology projects also form a significant
part of bilateral programmes
with the U.S., Germany, Italy, the European
Union and Taiwan. Two years ago, a National Centre for
Nanomaterials has
also been set up at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder
Metallurgy
and New Materials (ARCI) in Hyderabad in collaboration with institutions in Russia,
Ukraine, Japan, Germany and the U.S. When fully operational, this centre
will include pilot-scale
facilities for producing nanopowders, facilities
for producing carbon nanotubes (CNTs), facilities for
agglomeration of nanopowders,
compaction and sintering of nanopowders for use in nanostructured
components
and shapes, engineered coatings, development of CNT-reinforced ceramic and polymer
composites and use of nanopowders for water and air purification technologies.
According to G. Sundararajan, ARCI director, four products from the centre
have already been
transferred to the industry, including silver nanoparticle-based
water filter system for use in rural
areas, which has shown good results.
The centre has also developed technology for nanopowder
coating using sol-gel
technique - a method of material fabrication, particularly ceramic and
oxide
powders in ultrafine form, in which a colloidal solution (`sol') is gelled into
a solid
(`gel') phase. "Interest from industry, including foreign,
in our nanopowder technology
is slowly happening," Sundararajan said.
One area where the NSTI has not really impacted is in the creation of human
resource of sufficient calibre,
feels Rao Ayagari, adviser in the DST in
charge of administering the NSTI. "The real problem,"
says C.N.R.
Rao, "is that we have to create the technical manpower to work in this emerging
field.
Unless we do this, there will not be enough work happening in this
area in the near future. What is
nice to see is that there is a lot of interest
amongst the young students but there are very few training
centres in universities
and colleges."
The NSTI notwithstanding, it was becoming increasingly
obvious that if India wanted to
catch up with developments in the field
and use them particularly in applications relevant to the
developing world,
such as energy, water and health care, far greater investment was needed.
Now
this seems to be happening. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam himself provided the
much-needed
impetus in convincing the government on the need for substantially
increased funding.
Realising that ongoing work in nanotechnology and the
level of funding in the country were sub-optimal,
Kalam had organised a
meeting of the country's experts in the field at the Presidential Complex
at
Rashtrapati Bhavan on April 29, 2004, to chalk out a national mission in nanotechnology.
That initiative
of Kalam has today resulted in the government approving
an order of magnitude increase in funding.
"One of the very distinguishing
features," the meeting had observed, "is that the gap in time and
effort
needed as well as the investment to take the scientific research to the product
level is minimal.
Hence this technology would make return of investments
faster if investments are made judiciously.
Unlike the other technological
revolutions that we have witnessed so far, nanotechnology is
an enabling
technology, finding applications in such diverse areas as health, energy, defence
and
many societal applications. Thus it promises to be a ubiquitous technology
that would touch everyone
and would be a true vehicle for economic and societal
transformation."
The recommendations from the meeting, which had the
backing of the President, envisaged an
investment of about Rs.1,000 crores
over a five-year period. The usual bureaucratic procedures
having gone through,
the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) of the Finance Ministry has
now
approved this funding for the period 2006-11 and only a clearance from the Cabinet
is awaited.
That would be merely a formality as the 2006-07 Budget already
includes an ad hoc provision of
Rs.180 crores towards the mission. From
this year on, the activities under the NSTI will be subsumed
in this larger
framework with enhanced investment of the Nanoscience and Technology Mission (NSTM).
Although there is no `mission document' yet to give an idea of what the
mission objectives would be
and what the deliverables would be, the deliberations
at the meeting within the presidential precincts
give some idea of how the
money is likely to be invested. This includes the creation of national
facilities
at five different places specialising in complementary areas, including one or
more nanofab
facilities, with an investment of about Rs.100 crores in each
of them over the next five years, 10 mini
centres across the country (which
may or may not be co-located with the national facility).
These centres,
with an investment of Rs.25 crores for a centre, would have a reasonable amount
of equipment and would focus on one or two areas of nanoscience and technology.
The
recommendations also envisage the creation of a synchrotron facility
with an investment of about
Rs.250 crores in addition to the one already
being established under the DAE. "Even Taiwan has
two synchrotrons
dedicated to nanoscience," points out Sood. But there is some criticism against
this proposal as only the DAE in the country has the requisite expertise to operate
and maintain such
a facility.
While Sood believes that it should
be possible to make use of this enhanced funding properly, the
real challenge
will be in finding the right people. A bigger challenge will be to come out with
a few
commercial nano products at the end of the five-year period. The President
has called for a "dynamic
task force" that will identify national
projects as part of the mission with time-bound results like
high-efficiency
nanotube-based solar photovoltaic cells, diagnostic kits for cancer and HIV/AIDS
and
drug delivery systems, nano sensors for multiple application, surface
coating and engineering with
nanopowders and nanophosphors (nanoparticles
that have the property of phosphorescence or
luminescence that are expected
to find use in display technologies, picture tubes, cathode-ray and X-ray
tubes and so on).
"The country should come up with a number of infrastructural
facilities for long- and short-term
toxicological studies on nano-based
drug delivery systems," says Maitra. "Otherwise at the end
of
the day, the entire effort of a scientist, particularly from a university or a
small institution, will be
futile. Likewise, material characterisation from
a toxicological perspective is important. The National
Institute of Pharmaceutical
Education and Research (NIPER) in Chandigarh has excellent facilities
and
has taken this responsibility. But I think we need at least half a dozen NIPERs
for the research
community if we have to make a mark in nano-drug delivery
technology," he adds.
"Unlike what the history of science has
taught us," the President said in his recent address at
an international
nanotechnology conference in New Delhi early this year, "nanoscience,
nanotechnology
and nanofabrication have large connectivity. Also nanoscience and
technologies
are multidisciplinary. Hence research teams have to work in an integrated way
in a
mission mode operation. A new way of thinking in our nation is essential."
With the government
nod for such a mission, research in nanoscience and
technology in India looks poised for a renewed
take-off.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20060714003911300.htm
