IIT know-how turns industrial trash into model house

Wealth from waste

“Phospho-gypsum,” a waste product from fertiliser industry, may well be the key for sustainable, earthquake-proof, rapid and low-cost mass housing in the days to come.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras has used the waste product to build a two-storey “demonstration building” on its campus here in just 29 days after the laying of foundation stone, to showcase its “affordable mass housing” technology.

Even as Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram underscored the need for low-cost, sustainable mass housing while presenting the Budget in Parliament on Thursday, IIT-Madras Director Bhaskar Ramamurthi unveiled the “GFRG demonstration building”—a structure that is built with Glass Fibre Reinforced Gypsum panels—in a quiet ceremony here. IIT-Madras used the phospho-gypsum, the industrial waste, from the Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited (FACT) plant in Kochi, Kerala and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers, Mumbai, to make the GFRG panels, the IIT-M director disclosed on Saturday.

He added that the IIT’s idea was based on the “calcination technology” developed by Rapidwall Building Systems, Australia. The IIT-M’s “model housing apartment” with four flats—two each for the economically weaker sections (EWS) and the lower income group (LIG) people—is built in an area of 1981 sq ft.

The building is the culmination of 10 years of effort. A research group of the IIT-M’s Civil Engineering Department, led by Prof Devdas Menon and Prof A Mehar Prasad, started working on it in 2013. The research group conducted extensive studies on the use of the GFRG panels as “structural members for earthquake resistant design”. These panels, called “Rapidwall panels,” were used in Australia for “rapid erection of walls”.

The IIT-M group got Rs 1.32 crore aid from Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, to complete the research work and bring it to the stage of technology transfer. “We extended the application of the product (GFRG panels) for the entire building, including slabs, staircases and other systems,” Prof Ramamurthi said.

He said the GFRG building, which is fit for occupation, showcases the efficacy of the “rapid construction technology” and is “replicable for mass housing, vertically and horizontally”.

“The use of prefabricated light weight GFRG panels (43 kg/sq mt) not only implied faster overall construction time but also a safer working environment and the cost of the construction, with all amenities, has been reduced to about Rs 1,200 per sq ft,” he added.