CSIR-Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute

Functional Materials & Devices

Overview

The advent of smart materials, structures and systems on the one hand and the fear of burgeoning terrorism across the globe on the other hand have led to an extensive demand of sensors and actuators having tailor-made properties. Amongst different sensors, gas and vapour sensors are increasingly needed for safety, environmental monitoring and process control and find applications in diverse areas, e.g. monitoring of toxic gases like carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, chlorine, combustible gases like methane, LPG, CNG, hydrogen, automobile exhaust pollutants like SOx, NOx, hydrocarbons and measuring and controlling humidity for industrial, nuclear and domestic sectors. Also gas sensors in the form of array or e-nose are of paramount importance for detection of explosives, nerve gas, freshness of fruits and fish, monitoring tea aroma and in medical diagnostics like breath alcohol analyzer, diabetes detection etc. Presently our activity includes development of solid state sensors for detection of methane, LPG, CNG, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, trace moisture, alcohol (breathalyzer) and acetone(biomarker of diabetes in breath).

Basically, a smart structure consists of sensors, actuators and control circuit. An actuator is a transducer capable of transducing an input energy into mechanical energy (displacement/force). Piezoelectric materials are currently used in a variety of applications as sensors and actuators and they play a pivotal role in the arena of smart materials and structures. Ultrasonic structural health monitoring (SHM) is an area where piezoelectric materials in the form of wafers/patches can act as both actuators and sensors. Our present activities include development of multilayer piezoelectric actuators, piezoelectric wafers, and lead-free piezoelectric materials. We have also initiated work on energy harvesting devices using piezoelectric materials.

Recently, to boost collaboration so as to get a tangible outcome, “Sensor Hub” has been formed at CGCRI under the patronage of DST and CSIR. Presently, in the Hub, along with CGCRI, other Institutes in and around kolkata, who have been involved in sensor and related activities for a long time, viz., Jadavpur University, Calcutta University, Bengal Engg. & Science University and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Kolkata have joined hands to develop, fabricate and test electronic nose for tea aroma, MEMS-based battery operated methane and carbon monoxide sensors and arsenic detection kits. The Hub will provide pilot production and testing facilities of sensor and sensor array modules for food, agriculture and environmental applications so that the developed technologies can be transferred directly to the interested parties.

Areas of Research

Sensors for detection of toxic and combustibles gases like methane, carbon monoxide and LPG.
Sensors for tea aroma electronic nose
Semiconductor sensor based breath analyzer for noninvasive monitoring of diabetes
Humidity sensors for high temperature nuclear applications
Trace moisture sensors for different applications
Piezoelectric wafers for NDE of structures
Non-lead based piezoelectric materials and multiferroic materials
High block-force packaged multilayer piezoelectric actuators for aerospace applications
Energy harvesting devices using piezoelectric materials

Technology Developed

LPG leakage alarm
Trace moisture sensors
Piezoelectric wafers for NDE of structures
Packaged multilayer piezoelectric actuators ( Under Development )

Projects

Ongoing Projects

Sl. No.	Title of the Project	Duration	Project Category	Source of Funding	Principal Investigator	Co-Investigator (s)
1	Project – Development of piezoelectric ceramic composites sensor for under water application (GAP 0365)	2018-2019	GAP0365	DRDO	Dr Shrabanee Sen	Mr. A K Halder (CGCRI) Mr Anshuman Seal
2	Development of microcontroller based humidity meter to monitor the quality of tea in North Eastern India	2017-2020	GAP 0361	DST-SERB	Dr.Debdulal Saha	NIL
3	Development of low ppm moisture sensor and digital meters for online measurement of moisture present in transformer oil”	2018-2020	SSP0314	NTPC	Dr.Debdulal Saha	Dr. Sagnik Das
4	Multi-detection Methods (Resistive/Opto) for pesticide residue in food matrix (WP 5.3)	2018-2020	HCP0016	CSIR	Dr. Swastik Mondal	Dr. Ambarish Sanyal
5	Development of cost effective and easy to use analytical tool for BPA detection (WP 5.2)	2018-2020	HCP0016	CSIR	Dr. Ambarish Sanyal	Dr. Swastik Mondal
6	NANOBIOMISSION	2018-2020	HCP0012	CSIR	Dr. Mrinal Pal	Dr. Susmita Kundu
7			GAP0368	DST-Nanomission	Dr. Mrinal Pal	Dr. Susmita Kundu

Divisional Facilities

Dew point Meter & Chilled Mirror Hygrometer [Shaw Moisture Meter, England & Edge Tech, USA]	Ceramic Multilayer Actuator Test Bench [aixACCT Systems GmbH, Germany]
Wire bonder [West Bond Inc. USA	Lamination Press [Washbash Indiana, USA]
Wire bonding station [Developed at CGCRI]	Screen Printer [Skyhill, Taiwan]
Tape Caster [Haiku Tech Inc, USA]	Zeta Acoustic Particle Sizer [Matec Instrument Companies, Inc, USA]

Scientists

Dr. Somnath Bandyopadhyay,Senior Principal Scientist and Head
Dr. Mrinal Pal
Dr. Swastik Mondal
Dr. Shrabanee Sen
Dr. Susmita Kundu
Dr. Debdulal Saha
Dr. Ambarish Sanyal
Mr. Anshuman Seal
Dr. Arnab Mukherjee

Technical/Support Staff

Name	Designation	Expertise
Mr. Shankar Biswas	Senior Technical Officer (3)	Electrical Engineering, Maintenance of electrical equipments, Clean room etc
Dr. Sagnik Das	Senior Technical Officer (1)	Material preparation, sensor coating, sensor characterization.
Md. Jalaluddin Mondal	Senior Technician(2)	Operation & maintenance of sophisticated instruments and maintenance of gas measurement set up
Sk. Md. Mursalin	Technician (2)	Synthesis of sensor materials, processing of sensors & actuators, chemical stock maintenance.
Mr. Raju Manna	Technician (1)	Instrumentation (Maintenance & handling of sophisticated instruments ) and fabrication of sensor platform.

Scholars/Students

STUDENTS OF FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS & DEVICES DIVISION

NAME	DESIGNATION	AREA OF RESEARCH	SUPERVISOR
Abhishek Sasmal	DST-INSPIRE SRF	Design and Fabrication of Nanogenerator Composites	Dr. Shrabanee Sen
Shewli Pratihar	DST-INSPIRE SRF	Development of Polymer-Ceramic Composites as Self-Powered Sensor	Dr. Shrabanee Sen
Puja Ghosh	DST-INSPIRE SRF	To Understand the Multidimensional Applications of TiO₂ Polymorphs in Gas Sensing and Dye Sensitized Solar Cells	Dr.Shrabanee Sen / Dr P.Sujatha Devi
Sourav Maity	DST-INSPIRE JRF (Provisionally Joined)	Fabrication of flexible hybrid nanogenerator for powering low powered devices	Dr.Shrabanee Sen
Nirman Chakraborty	DST-INSPIRE-JRF	Investigations on surface structures on gas sensing properties of metal oxides	Dr Swastik Mondal
Pratyasha Rudra	DST-INSPIRE-JRF (Provisional)	Structure-Property relationship in Oxide Ceramics having application in Sensor and actuator Field	Dr Swastik Mondal
Partha Pratim Mondal	DST-INSPIRE JRF	Studies on the synthesis and characterization of spinel based materials for humidity sensor development	Dr Debdulal Saha
Preeti Lata Mahapatra	Project JRF (DST-SERB)	Development of microcontroller based humidity meter to monitor the quality of tea in North Eastern India	Dr Debdulal Saha
Dr. Arindam Saha	DST INSPIRE Faculty	Development of Surface Engineered and ‘Self-Programmed’ Smart Nanomaterials, Responsive to Threshold Microenvironment, as Biosensing Devices and Drug Delivery Vehicles, Functional nanomaterials development for library of biomolecules sensing	Individual Project PI, GAP 0364/ Dr. Ambarish Sanyal
Gaurav Ranjan Dey	Project Assistant(GAP 0364)	PLGA based nanoparticle development for continuous glucose monitoring above threshold concentration	Dr. Arindam Saha
Dr. Sarani Sen	CSIR-RA	Development of Electrochemical Sensor for Pesticide Detection using nanomaterials modified electrode	Dr. P. Sujatha Devi/ Dr. Ambarish Sanyal
Tanushree Das	JRF (GAP 0368)	Development of Graphene-metal oxide nanocomposite based Ammonia sensing device for medical application	Dr. Mrinal Pal
Sovandeb Sen	DST-INSPIRE-JRF (Provisional)	Study of graphene based sol-gel thin films for low temperature gas sensing application	Dr Susmita Kundu