Bhubaneswar, March 7: Ananya Samal is yet to attain adulthood, but her innovative bent of mind can surpass the "scientific maturity" of many.

The 17-year-old girl has recently developed a novel method of alloy preparation that can reduce loss of materials.

Aluminium-magnesium alloy is of huge use in automobile industry for producing lightweight material. This alloy offers good properties such as low density, good manufacturability and high strength. But the process leads to heavy loss of magnesium.

"To prepare the alloy, molten magnesium is poured into aluminium. This leads to over 50 per cent loss of magnesium. In order to balance the composition, magnesium is used in double portion. Thus there is a lot of unnecessary wastage of magnesium," she said. The aspiring scientist's innovative technique involves using a modified stir casting method. This ensures higher recovery of magnesium in the Al-Mg alloy. Asserting that the process is environment friendly and cost-effective, she said: "The loss of magnesium in the process is also around 2 per cent or almost nil," said Ananya, a second-year diploma student at Government Polytechnic, Bhubaneswar.

"I used to read a lot about compositions and chemical elements. While reading articles I came to know about how materials were lost in huge amounts while making alloys. The more I got into it, the more interest it garnered in me," said Ananya.

She discussed the matter with her father, who is a teacher at a Bhubaneswar engineering college. "He told me about a number of alternative methods of producing alloys. I also spoke to a number of senior college professors and engineers in the automobile industry," she said.

But she did not have a place to undertake the experiment. "I asked my father to let me use his college laboratory. After a lot of persuasion he agreed," she said.

"The method can be used in industrial application as well as metal matrix composite manufacturing," said Ananya with a confidence on her face.

She feels that the scope for women to get into the field of scientific study has increased over the years. "These days, a number of women are getting into the field of technology and scientific research. I feel all we need is a conducive environment and encouragement to break the male-dominated sphere," said Ananya.

This year, Ananya received the state government's Odisha Youth Innovation Award. MSME secretary L.N. Gupta said: "The innovations will be helpful in bringing about change in their respective fields. The government would provide them with all sorts of facilities for providing mentoring support, market linkages and facilitate soft loans through schemes and financial institutions to manufacture their products on large scale."