GANDHINAGAR: On the banks of the Sabarmati river in Gandhinagar sandwiched between an Amul Dairy and a hospital is a unique institute which plays neither with solid, liquid or gas but with the fourth state of matter, called plasma

Plasma is that unique state of matter where charged ions abound in gaseous form but since the whole mass is charged they behave uniquely unlike any other known form of matter.

The most intense and dense state of plasma that we see every day is the Sun, here hot gasses stripped of electrons survive in an exceptional state and one of the consequences of that giant ball of plasma is the release of solar energy that literally powers life on Earth. So in a way, plasma indeed has a life giving property.

Mostly plasmas are formed at very high temperatures but scientists can also produce plasmas at low temperatures and the cool plasma is used to cure human fungal infections and a variant is also used to treat a type of very warm wool called Angoora that produces some of the warmest woollen clothing.

In addition, high temperature plasmas are being deployed to destroy toxic hospital and organic waste, so plasmas are helping heal the Earth.

The Institute of Plasma Research , with an annual budget of Rs 500 crore, is best known for trying to harness that elusive eternal fruit of energy called fusion power, where two atoms are fused together and the energy they release can be used to generate electricity.

At IPR, using giant machines called 'tokamaks' some 700 workers are engaged in an effort to create a transient mini-Sun. Today using giant magnets and huge electrical fields, they can simulate the conditions that prevail on the Sun for a tiny-tiny fraction of a second. The hope is that if the same can be created on a perpetual basis which the boffins like to call a steady state, then harnessing fusion power would be one step closer.

Today one can only admire the Sun to benefit from its boundless energy. The high-tech plasma institute is best known as that great centre of learning that is helping India partner in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being constructed in France, a USD 14 billion grandest of atomic reactors that when fully functional will help deliver clean fusion power hopefully by 2050.

This is a dream project funded and run by seven member entities, the European Union , India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the USA.

But today in an industrial shed of IPR scientists at the Facilitation Centre for Industrial Plasma Technologies, work is going on to meet the immediate societal needs. One technology they are testing is how to use low temperature plasma to treat fungal infections and to help a dentist clean dirty teeth.

Cold plasma jets have been developed using argon gas and these plasma streams are directly applied to the infected spot and within a few sittings and without the application of any anti-fungal creams the infection just withers away, the first clinical trials are being conducted in Kolkata.

Being able to touch and feel this elusive fourth state of matter is a unique experience, reluctantly I put my finger on the plasma jet not knowing what would be the outcome, a mild tingling is what one feels as one pushes the finger into the intense light of the plasma jet. Having experienced solids, liquids and gasses this was the first time I actually touched and felt the fourth state of matter!

Biomedical waste is a particularly nasty form of refuse that gets generated in hospitals and laboratories, high in organic matter, the only way to dispose this often highly infectious waste is to incinerate or burn it at high temperature. The infectious material can indeed get consumed but it produces a carcinogenic fume rich in dioxins, hence simple burning can often lead to a downstream environmental catastrophe.

Scientists at IPR figured out that if you destroy organic waste in oxygen-starved conditions by using high temperature plasma, the waste could directly be converted into relatively environmentally benign molecules like methane, carbon mono-oxide, hydrogen and water. The process called plasma pyrolysis is relatively expensive but can help heal the earth.

Last week, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India International Exchange at the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City or GIFT City in Gandhinagar that gives India extended trading hours, if he wanted he could have also visited the functional environment friendly organic waste disposal facility that operates using the ultra-modern plasma pyrolysis plant set up with the help of Indian scientists.

'A waste to wealth innovation' is what Shashank Chaturvedi, Director of IPR, calls this an example of a "plasma-aided Swachh Bharat Abhiyan". Today the plant at the GIFT City can handle just 15 kilogrammes of waste per hour. Using a small furnace and graphite electrodes, hot plasma is produced which then destroys organic waste into harmless gases. In fact, in larger plants the waste gasses can then be used to generate heat and electricity.

Dr S Mukherjee, head of the tech transfer division of IPR, says the technology has been now been given a green signal by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the waste stream for which plasma pyrolysis technology can be adopted include biomedical waste, municipal solid waste, industrial chemical waste, tyre waste, tannery waste, electronics waste and IPR has successfully demonstrated 11 systems in India.

It was a few months ago that the Central Pollution Control Board gave its permission that plasma pyrolysis could be used to safely dispose the worst quality of biomedical waste.

Chaturvedi says even as the world eagerly waits to see copious amounts of energy being produced from the fourth state of matter, plasma is indeed already helping heal man and matter.

Today scientists at the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) are using this little known fourth state of matter for healing not only humans but also the earth.