Host of events to mark NCL’s 60th year

National Chemical Laboratory (NCL),a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will celebrate its 60 years of success with a host of programmes starting from this Friday and culminating in the diamond jubilee of its foundation on January 3,2010.

Dr S Sivaram,director,NCL said that several events like scientific symposia,workshops,commissioning of new physical facilities,launching of monographs and lectures by experts are planned during 2009-2010 to commemorate the diamond jubilee. Samir K Brahmchari,director general,CSIR will deliver the foundation day lecture on Friday and inaugurate the curtain raiser of NCL diamond jubilee year. Elaborating on the current projects that NCL is undertaking,Sivaram said the laboratory has developed a proto type of fuel cells,which are currently in operation and advanced testing at the Central Electrochemicals Research Institute in Chennai.

“We are planning for large scale prototype manufacturing which we want to test it in real time application. We are in talks with many companies like Tata and Reliance regarding this and the project is of a total investment of 4.5 crore,” he said.

NCL will also lead a wide mega research project programme of CSIR on materials for solar energy conversion. This is with an objective to look at new materials including nano-materials and organic materials for converting light energy into electricity.