Conference on Sustainable Catalytic Technologies at CSIR-NCL

CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune organized a two-day conference on “Sustainable Catalytic Technologies” in honor of Dr. Paul Ratnasamy, Former Director, CSIR-NCL on the occasion of his 75th Birthday. The conference was inaugurated by Prof. M. M. Sharma, Former Director, Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai today.

Prof. M. M. Sharma initiated the talk saying utilitarian part of research invigorates rigors of the fundamental research. He interestingly underlined that Silver, Gold and Platinum are used as the catalyst for the certain reactions. The credit for Platinum being used as catalyst has to be given to Dr. Paul Ratnasamy as he utilized it for Xylene isomerization. It is so fascinating that how catalysis is able to do magical things. The field of catalysis has essentially brought chemists, chemical technologists, biologists, physicists, chemical engineers all together in a single platform getting out most transformations which are difficult to conduct with the catalysts.

Prof. Sharma asserted that the catalyst does the absolute miracles in the field of chemistry. It can do the chopping and stitching of the molecules, dancing of molecules can be done in catalysis.  He liked a line read in somewhere that says “A dollar spent on a research on catalysis generates output of 100 to 400 dollars”. It has great advantage of commercial benefits.

Prof. M. M. Sharma, Dr. Sourav Pal, Former Director, CSIR-NCL, Dr. K. Vijayamohanan, Director, CSIR-CECRI, Karaikudi, Dr. B. D. Kulkarni, Former Dy. Director, CSIR-NCL, Dr. A. V. Ramaswamy. Former HoD, Catalysis and Inorganic Chemistry Division, Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Former HoD, Catalysis and Inorganic Chemistry Division, Dr. Darbha Srinivas, HoD, Catalysis and Inorganic Chemistry Division and Prof. Ashwini Kumar Nangia, Director, CSIR-NCL spoke while felicitating Dr. Paul Ratnasamy on his 75th Birthday. The distinguished speakers remembered his contributions to science and R&D management of the institute as well.

Earlier, Prof. Ashwini Kumar Nangia gave the welcome remarks and introduced Dr. Paul Ratnasamy and Prof. M. M. Sharma. Post-inaugural address, a short session of poster exhibition was carried followed by which Dr. Stephan Jaenicke, National University of Singapore, Singapore gave away a lecture honoring Dr. Paul Ratnasamy on the title “Back to the Future- Bio-based Chemistry: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”.