IISER Berhampur community congratulates four of its Chemical Sciences faculty members for securing the SERB CRG grant. Drs. Santanu Bhattacharyya, Adinarayana Doddi, Malay Kumar Rana and Prosenjit Daw received these research grants for a period of 3 years each.
Dr. Santanu Bhattacharyya will work on project titled, “Heterojunction Hybrids Made of Self assembled Donor(D)-Acceptor(A)-Donor(D) Type Organic Nanomaterials @ Fullerene/Non-fullerene Based Acceptors for Photocatalytic Solar to Hydrogen and Chemical Energy Conversions”. In this proposed project, we will fabricate D-A-D and A-D-A type self-assembled nanomaterials by solution based reprecipitation methods from highly defined D and A type small molecules as molecular building blocks. Specific arrangement of D and A type molecules will improve the visible absorption and the possibility of photo-induced charge separation. Later on, this typical self-assembled organic nanomaterial will be combined with other fullerene/non-fullerene type acceptors through conjugated carbon network as electron transporter. This highly defined heterojunction hybrids will be useful for the generation of photo-induced long living free carriers by reducing competitive recombination processes. Finally, long living electrons will migrate to the specific active sites of acceptor moieties for photocatalytic H 2 production and the counter hole located at D type molecules will be utilized for simultaneous oxidative transformation of waste materials to valuable products. Later we will focus on the efficiency enhancement of green H2 production and upscaling the transformation of waste materials to valuable products by molecular/atomic scale optimizations of the photocatalysts. Finally, we will utilize our system for H2 production directly from sea water by using waste products as feedstock.
Dr. Malay Kumar Rana plans to work reserach on the topic, “Prediction of Future Spike Mutants Based on In-silico and AI-based Methods: Therapeutic Discovery and Experimental Validation”. He states that the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has spread across the globe, instilling fear. Its evolution into several contiguous and infectious variants is the most vulnerable aspect. During the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 variants have appeared with improved viral fitness, immunological evasion, and transmissibility. In this proposal, we aim to predict possible future variants of SARS-CoV-2 by employing state-of-the-art computational methods and artificial intelligence (AI). To validate computational predictions, we will conduct suitable experiments for deleterious variants and potent neutralizing molecules as required.
Dr. Adinarayana Doddi will invest next 3 years working on “Stereoelectronically Tunable Redox-Active NHC Ligands and their Reactive Adducts; Synthesis and Catalytic Applications of their Transition Metal Complexes”. The project work primarily deals with stereo-electronic designs of a new class of N-heterocyclic carbene ligands, and development of efficient preparative methods. Their reactivity studies will be conducted towards earth-abundant, and low-cost metal complexes with the main aim of their applications as novel ancillary ligands in numerous metal based, and metal-free homogeneous catalytic process such as in CO 2 activation, functionalization-utilization reactions and also in various challenging organic transformations.
Dr. Prosenjit Daw will take on the challenge of, “Harvesting of Green Bio-Hydrogen from Biomass Derivatives Using Cooperative, Sustainable, Homogeneous Catalysts”. Reacting to the news of the award of SERB CRG grant, Dr. Daw says, the global warming and environmental issues are significant challenges in the current world, and sustainable renewable energies with net zero-emission and carbon-neutral processes are highly demanding. The production of green hydrogen is one of the fundamental steps to avoid such a problem. Biomass is considered a hydrogen-rich substrate and an alternative source of renewable hydrogen. Some techniques are developed for hydrogen production from biomass, although they are based on thermal techniques or heterogeneous-based catalytic processes, which generally work at high temperatures and in drastic reaction conditions. The development of homogeneous catalysts, which will be functional for the synthesis of the bio-hydrogen at moderate reaction conditions and follow the green chemistry protocols, is the prime goal of this proposal.
IISER Berhampur community wishes all the very bests to these researchers and their team.