Nuclear Power

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL), a public sector undertaking of DAE, operates 15 reactors (2 boiling water reactors and 13 pressurised heavy water reactors), with a total installed capacity of 3360 MWe. The Company registered about 245 reactor years of safe and radiation accident free experience of operation.

The Unit-4 of the 540 MWe Tarapur Atomic Power Project TAPP-3&4, that attained criticality in less than 5 years, went commercial on September 12, 2005.

The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO)'s peer-reviews of the Indian power stations indicated that condition and performance of the stations matched the world level.

 

Heavy Water Production

The Heavy Water Board (HWB) of DAE operates six Heavy Water Plants. The production of heavy water was very satisfactory and the specific energy consumption of the operating heavy water plants was excellent.

The commissioning of HWP (Baroda) with Ammonia Water Exchange Front end, as a technology demonstration, was successfully completed.

Besides meeting the domestic demand, the Heavy Water Board also exported 6 MT of heavy water to South Korea.

 Atomic Mineral Exploration and Mining

Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration & Research (AMD) identified new uranium anomalies and established additional uranium reserves.

Uranium Corporation of India (UCIL) adopted the latest state-of-the-art technology for mining and processing of uranium ore. The capacity utilization of all the operating units of UCIL improved substantially. Narwapahar mine and Processing Plant produced more than their installed capacity. Turamdih mine in Jharkhand was commissioned ahead of schedule.

Fuel Fabrication

Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) manufactured natural uranium oxide fuel for pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), reactor core structurals, and special materials, such as tantalum, niobium, etc. It successfully completed fabrication of 37 element fuel bundles for the initial core of 540 MWe PHWR at Tarapur (Tarapur-4). In addition to meeting re-load requirements of the 8 operating PHWRs and 2 BWRs, fuel bundles with depleted uranium were also fabricated here.

At Trombay, a new fuel fabrication line for MOX fuel pins for PFBR was completed.

Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and Waste Management

The reprocessing facilities at Trombay, Tarapur and Kalpakkam for spent fuel from research/power reactors, operated satisfactorily.

The Lead Mini Cell, a pilot plant facility for reprocessing of FBTR carbide fuel on lab scale, was commissioned. Two campaigns of FBTR mixed carbide fuel irradiated to a burn up of 25,000 and 50,000 megawatt day/tonne were reprocessed successfully.

 

            Waste Immobilisation Plant (WIP), Trombay carried out remote welding of the 100^th canister containing vitrified high level radioactive waste. The high level radioactive liquid waste at Trombay and Tarapur was processed by vitrification and concentration.

 

            For nuclear waste extraction, various exotic organic ligands were synthesized at Trombay. Sealed Type Three-Piece Manipulator of 20-kg payload capacity, an advanced version of mechanical master slave manipulator, was an important development.

 

Fast Breeders, Thorium based and other reactors

Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) at Kalpakkam operated smoothly. The fuel reached a peak burn-up of 1,54,000 MWd/t.

The Government of India accorded approval for the construction of 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam. A new company named “Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Limited” (BHAVINI) was formed and construction work of PFBR commenced.

BARC, that is engaged in developing 300MWe Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR), designed the core monitoring system for AHWR and completed fabrication of reactor tank for AHWR Critical Facility.

BARC's other endeavours related to Compact High Temperature Reactor (CHTR), Accelerator Driven Sub-Critical Systems (ADS), and others. The physics designs of the 100 kWt CHTR and Low Energy High Intensity Proton Accelerator (LEHIPA) for Accelerator Driven Sub-Critical System (ADS) project were completed at Trombay.

Research Reactors & Radioisotope Production

At Trombay, the research reactors Apsara, Cirus and Dhruva operated satisfactorily. A large number or 51 and others were produced.

 

RADIATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS

 

Nuclear radioisotopes

BRIT supplied ready-to-use radiopharmaceuticals and Cold Kits for formulation of Technetium-99m (Tc-99m) radiopharmaceuticals to various nuclear medicine centres. It also completed a Technetium-99m Column Generator Production Facility.

Radioimmunoassay (RIA) kits and immunoradiometric assay (IRMA) were supplied by BRIT to 300 immunoassay laboratories in the country.

The Plant for Radiation Sterilisation of Medical Products (ISOMED) offered gamma sterilisation services. About 28,000 cubic metres of medical products were sterilised. A working model for the Install and Operate Irradiator was made. To meet the hospital requirements BARC fabricated Brachy therapy sources.

The Radiation Medicine Centre of BARC provided quality radio-diagnostic and radiotherapy services for various ailments. Cyclotron and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) facility at the Centre was extensively used for diagnosis.   

The Regional Radiation Medicine Centre at Kolkata also offered various diagnostic services in the Eastern region of India.

RRCAT developed India’s first solid-state green laser based photo-coagulator to treat diabetic retinopathy of the eye.

At the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH), a bone marrow registry of unrelated voluntary marrow donors - Marrow Donor Registry (India) - was established. It developed first Indian recombinant antibody based therapeutic Immunotoxin that is effective on certain category of cancers, especially the carcinoma of breast.

Under the TMC Rural Outreach Programme (TMCROP) for the Districts Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg of Maharashtra, over 1,30,000 household surveys were conducted. TMC, under its Urban Outreach Programme covered over 75,000 women.

Towards networking of all the Regional Cancer Centres (RCCs) through telemedicine, the activities covered installation of hardware and software for the communications and the videoconferencing. In the first phase, TMH and Dr. B. Borooah Cancer Institute, Guwahati and the TMC’s Rural Outreach Programme (TMCROP) for Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg areas at Walavalkar Hospital, Dervan, Chiplun were linked.  In the second phase, seven hospitals from the Northeast were connected and established linkages with other Centres.

A world class teletherapy machine - 'Bhabhatron' for treatment of cancer, was developed at BARC and commissioned at ACTREC, Navi Mumbai, where it was regularly employed for beam therapy.

The Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) became fully functional. The Centre is dedicated exclusively for the entire spectrum of cancer research -- Basic, Translational and Clinical.

 

Nuclear Agriculture

The Nuclear Agriculture Programme of DAE focused on the use of radiation technology for the development of high yielding mutants of pulses, oil seeds and cereals, post-harvest radiation processing of food items, fertilizer and pesticide related studies, and other areas.

High yielding and disease resistant varieties of Soybean (TAMS-38) and Mungbean (TMB-37) were released for commercial cultivation. So far, a total of 26 crop varieties have been released for regular use.

The Radiation Processing Plant at Vashi processed about 3,000 metric tonnes of spices and other allied products. Onion and other agricultural commodities were radiation processed at the Radiation Processing Plant  Krushak, Nasik, Maharashtra. In private sector, four new radiation processing plants were set up in Kolkata, Sonepat, Ambernath and Vadodara.

Industrial Applications of Radiation Technologies

RRCAT developed laser systems for industrial applications. This decreases the cutting time nearly fifty fold; Carbon dioxide (CO₂) laser based rapid manufacturing system used in the fabrication of a number of components with various alloys, and novel CO₂ laser based multi-pass cavity for laser isotope separation of carbon-13. Laser welding of various automobile components was established with the indigenously developed high power carbon dioxide lasers.

10 MeV, 10 kW RF LINAC was installed at Electron Beam Centre at Navi Mumbai and a KALI 5000 single shot pulse accelerator, was commissioned at Trombay.

Water Desalination

To demonstrate seawater desalination using waste heat from a nuclear reactor, the 30 cubic metre/day low temperature evaporation desalination plant was commissioned with CIRUS research reactor at Trombay.

Basic Research

Ø       At BARC, the 128 node supercomputer of ANUPAM series giving 365 giga floating point operations (Flops) provided high computing platform for many applications.

Ø       The 512 node Anupam-Ameya supercomputer systems developed at Trombay, were in regular use by various national agencies for high end scientific calculations and data generations. A high-resolution tiled display system and a high-end parallel processing software-ANU view were successfully developed at Trombay.

Ø       In collaboration with Konkan Railways, BARC set up a remote seismic monitoring station at Ratnagiri for hazard monitoring along railway line. 

Ø       The 2.5 GeV Synchrotron Radiation Source Indus-2 set up at RRCAT, Indore, was dedicated to the nation on November 15, 2005 by the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Ø       VECC achieved successful commissioning of the Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) and  oxygen and nitrogen beams were accelerated using this heavy ion RFQ.

Ø       At the Institute for Plasma Research, Ahmedabad, the tokamak ADITYA was operated to study density limit under various operating conditions. The new experiment facility, Steady State Superconducting Tokamak (SST-1), is coming up here. International fusion community accepted Indian expertise in fusion science and technology and accepted India as a full participating country in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project.

Ø       The contributions of DAE organisations to the CERN kept pace with programmes of building Large Hadron Collider, along with its detectors CMS and ALICE.

Ø       Under the aegis of DAE, the Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI) was set up with the status of a ‘deemed-to-be-university. This will help in accelerating the pace of basic research as well translation of basic research into technology development.

Ø       DAE Science Research Council launched a unique programme to encourage exceptionally innovative research and development activities named as DAE-SRC Outstanding Research Investigator Award.

Technology Transfer and Patents

Ø       For the commercial exploitation of the spin off technology based developments, BARC transferred a number of technical know-hows to various institutions, and signed several MoUs with entrepreneurs.

 

Ø       Technology for bio-medical instruments such as Cardiac Output Meter, Anu-photo Rheograph, noninvasive Blood Pressure Monitor were developed and transferred to private domain for commercial production.

 

Ø       BARC installed at various places bio-gas plants "Nisarg-Runa", that are operating satisfactorily.

 

Ø       Plasma pyrolysis technology for medical waste disposal was commercialised by IPR. The plasma pyrolysis systems for non-chlorinated plastic waste were installed in Goa, Sikkim and Himchal Pradesh as well.

 

Ø       The success of ECIL’s Electronic Voting Machines in the national elections resulted in generation of lot of interest in various countries in the African continent as well as in other developing countries.

 

Ø       Till date, DAE has filed 156 patent applications including PCT and national phase applications, out of which 76 patents were granted so far of which 45 are in force.

 

 

 

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