NIT Rourkela, Sri Lanka Experts Explore Food-Waste To Value Technologies
Seven-day workshop focuses on zero-waste processing, sustainable packaging and advanced waste valorisation
Rourkela (Odisha): The National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela on Tuesday hosted a seven-day India–Sri Lanka workshop on advanced technologies for reducing food industry waste and converting it into value-added products, bringing together researchers, academics, students and industry experts from the two countries.
The workshop, held from September 21 to 27, focused on “Advanced Thermal and Non-Thermal Sustainable Technologies for Food Industry Waste Reduction and Waste Valorization.”
It was sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, and supported by Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Science and Technology.
The programme was convened by Prof. Winny Routray and Prof. Rachna Sehrawat, with Prof. Sabyasachi Mishra, Head of the Department of Food Process Engineering, as Programme Chairman.
The Sri Lankan delegation comprised experts from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, University College Matara, University of Vocational Technology and BMS Campus. It included Dr Dulani Somendrika, Prof. Indira Wickramasinghe, Dr I.G. Gimanie Kasunmala and Mrs Chalani Akmeeman.
Addressing the delegates, NIT Rourkela director Prof. K. Umamaheshwar Rao said such programmes provided opportunities for researchers and students to exchange knowledge, explore emerging technologies and build academic collaborations.
The technical sessions brought together experts from NIT Rourkela, IIT Patna, IIT Kharagpur, NIFTEM Kundli, ICAR-Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET) and ICAR-National Institute of Secondary Agriculture, besides industry representatives.
Discussions covered zero-waste food production, biofertilisers from industrial waste, agricultural and aquaculture resource valorisation, sustainable packaging, smart sensing, protein and starch recovery, green-technology-based drying, membrane separation, extrusion, and advanced oilseed and spice processing.
Participants also received hands-on exposure to NIT Rourkela’s Central Research Facility, including demonstrations of electron microscopy, spectroscopy, chromatography, thermal analysis, X-ray techniques, ICP-OES, 3D printing, liquid nitrogen systems and cold plasma technology.
The workshop also explored converting food and industrial waste into products such as biofertilisers and functional packaging materials, while strengthening prospects for joint research and institutional cooperation between India and Sri Lanka.
