IIT (ISM) Dhanbad Patents Electrochemical Reactor for Copper Recovery from Wastewater

15 September 2026National

IIT (ISM) Dhanbad has been granted an Indian patent for "An Electrochemical Reactor for Cathodic Recovery of Copper from Wastewater". The patent was granted on 30 July 2026 on an application filed on 29 November 2023. The technology was developed by Prof. Vipin Kumar of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, with PhD scholars Nishant Pandey and Ankur Singh as co-inventors. In the reactor, copper ions in an effluent stream migrate to the cathode and are deposited on the electrode surface, allowing the metal to be recovered instead of discharged. It targets metal-bearing effluents from mining and metallurgical industries and supports circular-economy resource recovery.

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Indian patents are granted under the Patents Act, 1970; a patent runs for 20 years from the date of filing | Copper (Cu) has atomic number 29; India's main copper belts are Khetri (Rajasthan), Malanjkhand (Madhya Pradesh) and Singhbhum (Jharkhand) | IIT (ISM) Dhanbad was founded in 1926 as the Indian School of Mines and was converted into an IIT in 2016

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