With the aim to help the agri allied sectors in the state, the Nagaland Science and Technology Council (NASTEC) organized a seminar on the topic “Radical nitriding process for improving the life of cutting tools for agriculture” with Dr. Alphonsa Joseph, Eng. SG from the facilitation center for Industrial Plasma Technologies (FCIPT), Institute of Plasma Research (IPR) Gandhinagar Gujarat as the resource person at NASTEC complex Kohima on Tuesday.
Dr. Joseph in her slide show presentation explained the process of radical nitriding process for improving the life of cutting tools of agricultural implements by controlled heating and cooling of metal to change its properties and performance. She said the nitriding process would improve toughness, increase hardness, increase ductility, improve machine ability, refine grain structure and remove residual stresses.
She said the nitriding process make the agricultural tools sharpness last longer and also is used in automobile industry, metal casting and moulding industries, forging industry, aluminium industry, plastics industry, machine building, powder metallurgy and power engineering.
She informed that the objective of the project was to develop the radical nitriding process for improving the life of cutting tools used in agriculture particularly for North East states like Nagaland. It was also meant to promote the technology by holding campaign in Nagaland and identifying an industrial collaborator with the help of Department of Science and Technology (DST) Nagaland.
On the sideline of the programme, senior research fellow NASTEC Neikuo Krome informed that the department in collaboration with Institute for Plasma Research Facilitation Centre for Industrial Plasma Technologies Gandhinagar Gujarat was planning to install plasma machine at Dimapur during the last part of this year.
This would enable agri and allied sectors cutting tools be nitrided like crusher blade, jungle and weeds clearing tools, dao, shovel and others to make the cutting edge to last long, save money and time.
He also informed that the department had received satisfactory result from the farmers and users of nitrided cutting tools about its durable life and convenience.
Programme was attended by NASTEC officials and other department representatives.