IIT Hyderabad, DMRL and Innomet partner to set up industrial-scale gas atomizer for high-purity metal powders

IIT Hyderabad, the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), and Innomet Advanced Materials have signed a partnership to establish an industrial-scale gas atomization facility for producing high-purity metal powders. The facility, located at IIT Hyderabad's campus, will focus on titanium alloys (Ti-6Al-4V), nickel-based superalloys, and other reactive metals critical for metal additive manufacturing. The project is funded through a combination of government grants and industry co-investment, with DMRL providing qualification expertise and Innomet contributing commercial powder production know-how. The atomizer is expected to achieve production capacities of several hundred tonnes per year once fully operational, targeting both domestic and export markets.

This partnership directly addresses a structural bottleneck in India's metal AM ecosystem: the near-total dependence on imported gas-atomized powders for LPBF and DED processes. Indian AM service bureaus and aerospace primes currently source Ti-6Al-4V and Inconel 718 powders from European and North American suppliers at premium prices with long lead times. By localizing production through a DMRL-qualified supply chain, the consortium aims to reduce powder costs by 30-40% and eliminate import dependencies for defense and aerospace applications. The move mirrors the Chinese localization arc (P2) but with a critical difference: DMRL's involvement embeds the output in India's defense qualification framework, creating a switching-cost moat for domestic users. For Innomet, this represents a vertical integration play from its existing powder blending and recycling services into primary atomization, positioning it as India's first end-to-end metal powder supplier for AM.

For Innomet, the practical challenge now is scaling from pilot to consistent industrial production while maintaining the tight particle size distributions (15-53 µm for LPBF, 45-150 µm for DED) that customers require. The partnership's success hinges on whether the atomizer can achieve the same oxygen content and sphericity standards as established global suppliers like AP&C or Praxair. If Innomet executes on quality, it will capture a defensible position in India's growing defense and aerospace AM supply chain, where NDAA-style localization pressures are accelerating. Buyers should expect qualification samples within 12-18 months, with full production volumes by late 2027.