Scientist-technocrat couple from Visakhapatnam bag award for their research on fly ash utilisation in construction industry

Scientist-technocrat couple from Visakhapatnam, N. Bhanumathidas and N. Kalidas, win ICI Ultra Tech Awards 2023 for their research on fly ash utilisation in construction industry.

Founders of the Institute of Solid Waste Research and Ecological Balance (INSWAREB), Visakhapatnam, N. Bhanumathidas and N. Kalidas, the scientist-technocrat couple, have bagged the ICI Ultra Tech Awards 2023 for their outstanding research, which contributed to the massive utilisation of fly ash in the construction industry.

The award was presented to them at a function in Vijayawada recently.

The maiden research of Mr. Kalidas commenced with the processing of phosphogypsum towards various building elements. This work has facilitated him to associate with Salzgitter Industriebau GmbH, one of the giant engineering companies of erstwhile united Germany, in promoting their gypsum building material technologies in India.

His marriage with Bhanumathidas, a post-graduate in Physics, in 1981, led to the furtherance of research on gypsum building materials and allied derivatives She pursued her doctoral studies on Fal-G on the aspect of ‘Optimisation of Process Kinetics of Stoichiometry of Fly ash-Lime-Gypsum (Fal-G) Mix’ and obtained doctorate in 1997’.

Their research to impart insolubility to gypsum elements has lead to the invention of patented cementitious mix christened FaL-G in 1989 that had revolutionised the fly ash utilisation towards brick production in India. They had dedicated this technology to the nation in 1990, without invoking the patent for royalty. This has triggered mushrooming growth with over 30,000 operational plants for Fal-G- brick/block production throughout the country, says Mr. Kalidas.

The journey of the awardees started with the use FaL-G concrete for the slab of their residence, Fal-G Mansion, at Sheelanagar in Visakhapatnam city, in 1991. In 2000, the researchers were awarded 1 million Yen ‘Round Table Conference Commemorative Grant’ from the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO), Japan, for studies on ‘Promotion of mass scale fly ash utilisation towards conservation of energy, mineral wealth and welfare of ecology’. In 2019, they won the first prize for Nano Concrete Aggregate (NACA) technology at the ‘National Grand Challenge’, conducted by NTPC, New Delhi.

They jointly authored and presented several papers at various national and international fora. They also authorised a comprehensive text, ‘Fly ash for Sustainable Development’, which is a compendium of various data right from fly ash generation to its role in concrete durability and sustainable development.