Rubber Technology Centre (RTC) is a unique Centre, the first of its kind in our country. The first Rubber Technology Laboratory in our country for the purpose of teaching and research was established in 1955 in the Department of Applied Chemistry in IIT, Kharagpur under the collaborative program with the British Government (the Colombo Plan), the USA Government (Technical Collaboration Mission) and Ministry of Education, Government of India. The independent Rubber Technology Centre was established in 1981. The Centre acquired advanced processing testing and characterization equipment from Indo-British, IndoFrench Collaborative Programs and also a large number of research projects from government organization and industries. During last three decades since its inception this Centre has done pioneering work in research and education in rubber and polymer science and technology. In 2014 it was awarded as the best Institute for education and research in Rubber Science and Technology by the 'Rubber Asia' magazine
The state of the art research program of the Centre is focused on the development of new functional advanced polymers & elastomers, novel processing technology, new polymer and rubbers from sustainable materials, polymer blends & alloys in developing advanced materials like nanocomposites, based on nano-clay, nano-silica, nanotitania, novel block and graft copolymers, thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) and thermoplastic vulcanization (TPV). The research agenda of RTC also includes development of smart materials based on self-healable rubbers & polymers, shape-memory polymers, hydrophobic polymers, thermo-reversible core shell materials, multiresponsive hydrogels for targeted drug delivery magneticpolymers, EMI shielding materials, radiation processing/crosslinking, reactive mixing etc. The Centre also works on the innovative technologies for the development of different products, like green tire technology, inflatable seals, cables, conveyor belt, rubber roller, shoes, packaging etc. The Centre has close collaboration with the academia as well as many polymer and rubber industries in India and abroad. The details of the activity of the Centre is available in this website: http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/RT
