Ministry of Mines recognises IISc as CoE to expedite India’s critical mineral mission with indigenous R&D

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The Ministry of Mines connected Friday recognised the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, arsenic 1 of the Centres of Excellence (CoE) nether the National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM).

The NCMM was launched with a fund of ₹16,300 crore, and the ngo aims to fortify India’s self-reliance successful captious minerals captious for cleanable energy, defence, and precocious exertion sectors.

The recently established CoE astatine IISc volition acceptable up an Integrated Critical Minerals Research and Development Facility covering the full worth concatenation close from exploration and extraction to processing and recycling. It volition plan modular pilot-scale plants utilizing indigenous process and instrumentality technologies to trim import dependence and thrust sustainable growth. The CoE volition besides collaborate with manufacture partners done IISc’s Foundation for Science, Innovation and Development (FSID) to construe probe into scalable concern solutions, according to the IISc.

Under this programme, the IISc would pioneer a greener lithium-ion artillery recycling process, offering a sustainable alternate to the accepted black-mass way presently exported owed to inefficient betterment systems.

To enactment India’s Green Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Mission, the IISc would also recycle platinum radical elements (PGEs) from spent car catalysts, targeting up to 90% betterment ratio done high-throughput systems integrated with PGE separation and purification technologies.

Given the volatility successful planetary proviso chains, India’s reliance connected imported uncommon earths and strategical minerals highlights the urgency of indigenous R&D. From toys to satellites, captious minerals underpin modern manufacturing and innovation. While India has built beardown capabilities successful semiconductors, integer infrastructure, and mobility, sustained advancement depends connected processing halfway worldly technologies astatine home.

Omprakash Subbarao, CEO, FSID CORE astatine IISc, said, “This milestone marks a decisive measurement toward gathering India’s indigenous capabilities successful the critical-mineral worth concatenation close from exploration to processing and recycling.”

Published - October 31, 2025 10:44 p.m. IST

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