NIT Rourkela Patents Jackfruit Peel-Based Material To Remove Over 90% Of Fluoride From Contaminated Groundwater

New Delhi: Researchers at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, have patented a low-cost material made using jackfruit peel, which can remove excess fluoride from contaminated groundwater, it said.

According to Susmita Mishra, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, NIT Rourkela, by using activated carbon made from jackfruit peel and modifying it with zirconium to improve its fluoride-capturing ability, the patented material offers a promising approach to addressing a drinking water challenge that affects communities across India.

Fluoride contamination has been reported in groundwater in several parts of the country, making affordable and sustainable water treatment an important public health priority.

According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, excessive fluoride in drinking water can negatively impact human health. It can cause dental and skeletal fluorosis, affecting both children and adults.

"The key idea behind this technology is to use an agricultural waste material as a resource for water purification. We prepared activated carbon from discarded jackfruit peel and modified it with zirconium to improve its ability to capture fluoride from water.

"The material showed promising results in laboratory tests, removing over 90 per cent of fluoride within approximately 10 minutes under the tested conditions," Mishra was quoted as saying in an institute statement.

While there are multiple conventional methods to remove fluoride from groundwater, they all have certain limitations for wider adoption. For example, the reverse osmosis method discards a large amount of water in the treatment process and removes beneficial minerals like calcium and magnesium from the treated water.

On the other hand, processes such as ion exchange and activated alumina use harsh chemicals, making them non-eco-friendly.

To address these limitations, the NIT Rourkela research team converted discarded jackfruit peel into activated carbon.

Mishra explained that the potential of this technology lies in its use of an easily available agricultural by-product to develop a cost-effective material for fluoride removal.

"In the long term, the technology could contribute to water treatment solutions for communities in fluoride-affected regions, subject to further testing and validation.”

Pratima Minz, Research Graduate, NIT Rourkela, who co-owns the patent, said that in lab-scale tests, the developed material achieved more than 90 per cent fluoride removal within approximately 10 minutes at fluoride concentrations of around 1–5 milligrams per litre.

"We recorded removal efficiencies exceeding 90–97 per cent within 10–20 minutes under the tested conditions. These findings indicate the material's potential for applications in drinking water treatment, including in regions where groundwater fluoride levels pose a concern.

"Particularly in rural and semi-urban areas where access to reliable treatment infrastructure is limited, the developed technology holds the potential to support decentralised water treatment solutions at a community level. Additionally, the use of an agricultural by-product supports a waste-to-resource pathway, thus promoting a more sustainable approach to water purification," Minz said.

By validating the developed material and water treatment concept at the laboratory level, the research has reached Technology Readiness Level 4 (TRL 4). Based on the lab-scale tests, the research team has estimated the synthesis cost at approximately Rs 37 per gram, based on the electricity and chemicals used.

As the next step, the research team now plans to develop a physical prototype and assess the practical deployment, long-term performance, and operational costs of the developed material.

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