Title : Protein - Inorganic Sustainable Hybrid Nano-Materials in Water Purification
Abstract:
Proteins belong to an important and abundant class of natural biomolecules. Use of such systems for the development of nano-materials for different applications would automatically endow its inherent property of immunogenicity, low-toxicity, biocompatibility, easy degradability and resource availability. Their nano-structures and thereby the utility can be modified by using biologically relevant metal ions. Therefore, various protein – inorganic based nano materials have been explored in our group for water purification. Some of those which will be covered in this lecture include, (a) Role of Moringa Oleifera coagulant protein coated copper phosphate nanoflowers for the removal of heavy toxic metal ions and in oxidative degradation of dyes from water.1 (b) BSA-copper hydrogel in the absorption and degradation organic dyes from water.2-3 (c) pH responsive BSA-Au hydrogel beads for the removal of organic dyes and heavy toxic metal ions from contaminated water.4 Our group also developed some macrocyclic based organic – inorganic hybrid nano materials for the removal of dye contaminations from water.5
Biography:
Dr. Chebrolu Pulla Rao is currently a J.C. Bose National Fellow and Professor at IIT Tirupati. Prior to this, he held an Institute Chair Professorship in the Department of Chemistry, IIT Bombay wherein he was a faculty during 1988-2019. He did his Masters from IIT Madras, Ph.D. from IISc., Bangalore, and two post doctoral stints one from Harvard University and the other from MIT, USA. His research interest spans across Biological Inorganic and Supramolecular chemistry using small synthetic molecular systems as well as proteins with an extension of the studies to biological cells, and the efforts are way into nanobiomaterials. His research group extensively uses spectroscopy, microscopy and diffraction techniques besides practicing biochemical methodologies including antiproliferative activity. Till now 37 PhD and 59 MSc students completed their degrees and published over 240 papers in journals of international repute and completed a number of research projects sponsored by Department of Science and Technology (SERB, Nano Mission), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and Department of Atomic Energy-Board for Research in Nuclear Sciences. To its credit, the group has 3 US patents and 7 Indian patents awarded, and 4 more Indian patents are under active consideration by the Patent office. He is a fellow of Indian National Science Academy (FNA), Indian Academy of Sciences Bangalore (FASc), National Academy of Sciences Allahabad (FNASc) and Andhra Pradesh Academy of Sciences (FAPAS) and is a CRSI silver medalist. He has served on the editorial board of IJC A for a decade and the Journal of Chemical Sciences for three years.
