Best lab award for NCL

PUNE: The city-based National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) has received the 'best laboratory award' for production of resins for development of critical components of the Brahmos missile. The award is constituted by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
A statement issued by the NCL said that the award has been conferred for 2012 and Sourav Pal, director of NCL, received it on Tuesday.
The NCL has successfully developed the technology for manufacturing high-temperature polymeric resins and chemicals of 15 types for airframes of Brahmos missile.
The award recognizes NCL's breakthrough technology development and transfer of technology to industry for production of critical polymeric resins and chemicals for Brahmos missile. The NCL was approached to develop 15 polymers, resins and catalysts for the backward integration of the missile system. The key critically non-metallic component, polymerizable monomeric reactant (PMR) type polyimide resin, and 14 other chemicals were successfully developed.
Based on the successful test results, Brahmos signed a commercial agreement for the production of the resin system. A team led by Surendra Ponrathnam comprising C R Rajan, M S Qureshi, N N Chavan, S S Bhongale, S A Mule, S B Deokar and P R Rajamohanan achieved this goal.
The NCL is a laboratory of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).