IIT Bombay

On April 6, 2026, India achieved a historic breakthrough when the indigenously built Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, reached its first criticality. The milestone signifies India’s official transition to the second stage of its nuclear energy programme, making it only the second country in the world, after Russia, to operate a commercial-scale fast-breeder reactor.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/science/decoding-indias-kalpakkam-milestone-3980108

“Liquid Sodium poses challenges due to its chemical reactivity with air and water, and activation into radioactive sodium-24,” remarks Prof. Suneet Singh, professor at the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay. “India’s FBR addresses these risks through a pool-type design of thermal stability and intermediate sodium loop to isolate radioactive coolant, and double-wall steam generators,” he adds.

Nuclear energy: Kalpakkam PFBR milestone signals India nuclear leap reactor Fast breeder reactor: Kalpakkam milestone at PFBR marks India's entry into fast breeder stage strengthening energy security and paving path to thorium based nuclear power future reducing import dependence and radioactive waste burden for India ahead.

We are pleased to share that Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Goldi Solar Private Limited formally entered into a Research Collaboration Agreement on 14th May 2026, marking the beginning of a strategic collaboration in the field of renewable energy and solar technology.

The collaboration is aimed at advancing research and innovation in solar modules, with a strong focus on process optimization, advanced metrology techniques, defect analysis and reduction, and other research areas that may be mutually identified by both parties during the course of the collaboration. Through this collaboration, the institution seeks to combine academic excellence with industry expertise to address technological challenges and contribute towards the development of efficient and sustainable solar energy solutions.

This engagement is expected to create opportunities for collaborative research projects, knowledge exchange, technology development, and future industry-academia interactions that will further strengthen innovation in the renewable energy sector.

Both Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Goldi Solar Private Limited look forward to a long-term and fruitful association that will promote impactful indigenous research, technological advancement, and meaningful contributions towards India's clean energy mission.

A step towards Development of Efficient Semi-Cryogenic Engine

Recently a project focused on semi-cryogenic engines was concluded at Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay in collaboration with LPSC, ISRO, Trivandrum. Cryogenic engines are used in upper stages of the launch vehicles due to their higher specific impulse. The liquid-v***r two-phase flow is a major concern due to extreme temperature limits in cryogenic engines. Efficient operation of cryogenic rocket engines depends on a clear understanding of how v***r and liquid interact during rapid heat transfer processes.

One such liquid-v***r interaction occurs in the semi-cryogenic engine where the high temperature gaseous oxygen comes into direct contact with liquid oxygen and condenses before entering the main pump. For proper operation, the gas must condense completely; otherwise, the remaining gas can seriously affect the performance of the pump. Measurement of heat transfer rates in such flows through conventional intrusive methods is difficult as it disturbs the flow itself and also does not capture the fast transients associated with the phenomena. This has been a challenge in studying cryogenic propulsion systems.

To address this challenge, ISRO funded a 3-year research project at IIT Bombay. Prof. Atul Srivastava and Prof. Milind Atrey were involved in this project from IIT Bombay side while scientists Dr. Deepak Agrawal and Anant Singhal worked from LPSC side. A novel optical method called Rainbow Schlieren Deflectometry was developed right from its first principles and applied to directly measure the thermal gradients around condensing steam cavity in a pool of water. The technique works without inserting any probes into the fluid and allows researchers to capture the entire temperature gradients field around the v***r cavity, and determine the variation of heat transfer rates during the v***r-liquid interaction. The application of the optical method on steam-water system is the proof-of-concept that such a technique can be successfully used to quantify the heat transfer rates in liquid-v***r two-phase systems.

The developed technology has been then applied in the cryogenic environment for condensing gaseous nitrogen in flowing liquid nitrogen. The initial results demonstrate the applicability of the RSD technique for visualizing the spatio-temporally resolved thermal gradients in two-phase cryogenic flows. As part of the project, the know-how of the RSD technique was transferred to LPSC.

The knowledge gained from the study will help improve the understanding of two-phase heat transfer processes relevant to cryogenic propellants such as liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen used in launch vehicles. For ISRO’s future launch vehicles, this improved understanding can support the design of more reliable and efficient cryogenic systems.

Ministry of Education

GeoMeld: A step towards scalable geospatial foundation models

Researchers at IIT Bombay, led by Prof. Biplab Banerjee, with authors including Dr. Maram Hassan and Aminur Hossain from the group, along with collaborators, have introduced GeoMeld — a large-scale multimodal geospatial dataset comprising approximately 2.5 million samples.

GeoMeld brings together spatially aligned optical imagery, SAR, elevation, land-cover products, canopy height, and structured geographic metadata. It also introduces an agentic captioning framework that synthesizes and verifies semantically grounded language supervision from spectral, terrain, and geographic context.

The dataset is designed to support the development of geospatial foundation models that can learn across sensors, modalities, tasks, and regions. This aligns with the group's ongoing efforts on multitask agentic models for geospatial data and scalable geospatial intelligence.

The GeoMeld work has been accepted at the CVPR Workshop MORSE 2026. The group will present a total of five papers at CVPR 2026 — two in the main conference and three in workshops.

Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/2604.10591
Dataset: https://github.com/MaramAI/GeoMeld

ANRF–PAIR, IIT Bombay successfully conducted the "Invitational Faculty Workshop: WEL Course Work Demonstration" in collaboration with the Wadhwani Electronics Laboratory (WEL), IIT Bombay.

As the Hub institution under the ANRF–PAIR initiative, IIT Bombay hosted faculty members from partner Spoke institutions for an interactive workshop aimed at strengthening laboratory ecosystems and enhancing technical education capacity across institutions.

Key highlights of the workshop included:

• Comprehensive demonstration of the WEL course portfolio and its deployment methodology.

• Showcasing of in-house hardware platforms and experimental modules designed to foster hands-on technical competence.

• Strategic discussions on infrastructure readiness and adoption pathways across partner institutions.

Through structured knowledge transfer and the promotion of standardized, high-quality laboratory pedagogy, the ANRF–PAIR network remains committed to building a sustainable and self-reliant academic ecosystem in India.

We extend our sincere appreciation to all participating faculty members and the dedicated WEL team for making the workshop a great success.

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay has entered into a technology licensing agreement with Evergreen Lithium Recycling Pvt. Ltd. On 5th May 2026 to advance the extraction of battery precursor-related critical minerals and enhance efficiency in battery recycling operations. The agreement was signed by Prof. Shrikrishna V. Kulkarni, Dean R&D, IIT Bombay, and Mr. Rajesh Gupta, Founder & MD, Evergreen Lithium Recycling Pvt. Ltd in the presence of Prof. Swatantra Pratap Singh, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, and others.

This collaboration marks a significant step toward building scalable, technology-driven solutions in India’s emerging circular economy. The licensed technology is expected to deliver up to 30%-40% processing cost optimization while improving overall process efficiency, strengthening capabilities in urban mining and resource recovery.

Prof. Swatantra Pratap Singh, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, and his team have developed this innovative technology. Commenting on the development, Prof. Swatantra Pratap Singh said, “Waste-to-wealth technologies are becoming critical for India’s sustainable future, resource security, and circular economy goals. Our research group is developing advanced membrane and electrochemical technologies to recover clean water, nutrients, lithium, rare-earth elements, acids, and other critical minerals from wastewater and industrial waste streams. Membranes are emerging as one of the most critical technologies enabling selective, energy-efficient, and sustainable resource recovery. The laboratory’s research focuses on converting waste into valuable resources while supporting India’s priorities in clean energy, wastewater reuse, critical mineral security, and moving towards Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

At a time when India is prioritizing critical mineral security and localization of battery supply chains, this partnership reinforces its commitment to supporting the country’s clean energy transition and electric mobility ecosystem.