The Department of Chemistry IIT Tirupati, is one of the most vibrant, esteemed and progressive department in the country. The Department consists six regular faculty members and two DST- Inspire faculty members. And their research interest is spanning over wide range of inorganic, organic, theoretical and computational chemistry.

• Thrust Area of research
• Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry
• Bioinorganic and Cluster Chemistry
• Synthesis and Catalysis
• Energy and environment
• Supramolecular Chemistry and Material Science
• Structure and dynamics of soft-condensed matter

Research Highlights

Prof. C. P. Rao’s group has been involved in the research based on bioinorganic chemistry with an approach of biomimetic aspects, initially using small N,O- based ligands, followed by carbohydrate based molecules and conjugates, and then entered into the arena of the conjugates of supramolecular systems, such as, calixarenes. All this research that spanned over two decades resulted in the enrichment of chemistry of molecular sensors in navigating various molecules and species of importance in health and in the environment.

This paved the path to enter into the application domain of protein-inorganic nano-hybrid materials wherein, some of these acted as drug storage and delivery including sustained and targeted type, in the purification of water from heavy metal ions and organic dyes, in the cancer cell imaging and anticancer agent and in enzyme mimetic activities. Further explorations are on the way in this direction.

Dr Gouriprasanna Roy’s Research group aims to understand the roles of proteins that play in physiological and pathological process and use this knowledge to identify novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of complex diseases. Their Goal is to develop the engineering solutions for those complex diseases and to achieve their goals they develop and apply new technologies that bridge the fields of chemistry and biology. A large variety of powerful tools are used to explore the chemistry–biology interface—which provides a unique and exciting opportunity for students to engage in a number of existing multi-disciplinary research. Group’s Recent focus is on Converting Highly Neurotoxic Environmental Pollutant Methylmercury to the Biologically Inert HgS & HgSe Species Under Physiological Conditions. Converting Highly Neurotoxic Environmental Pollutant Methylmercury to Less Toxic Hg2+ and volatile Methane Gas. And Converting Redox Active Toxic Excess Copper into Antioxidant CuSe species.

Advancement in organic synthesis are vital to the chemical industries, which will significantly reduce the cost of end-user products such as drugs, agrochemicals, paints, plastics, etc. In modern chemical industries, key challenge is realizing the bulk of chemicals in an economical, eco-friendly, and sustainable manner. Dr. Gandeepan and his team are focusing on the development of novel synthetic methods for sustainable organic synthesis. They explore photochemical, electrochemical, and flow technology to achieve an efficient and scalable chemical synthesis sustainably. To realize the eco-friendly and sustainable chemical synthesis, Dr. Gandeepan’s group probing different aspects that include, but not limited to:

• Use of bio-based solvents for organic synthesis
• Use of green energy source such as sunlight
• Use of waste materials (e.g., CO2) as the feedstock in chemical synthesis

The use of less functionalized starting materials in organic synthesis is the key to reduce the cost of production and waste formation. Dr. Gandeepan’s Group is working on C-H, C-C, and C-heteroatom bond activation reactions to develop functional molecules in this aspect.
Research interests of Dr. Manna's group involve studying and exploring the structure-property relationships of varied length and time scales in a range of functional molecules and also extended materials by implementing modern state-of-the-art multi-scale simulations techniques, such as ab initio density functional theory (DFT), time-dependent DFT (TDDFT), many-body perturbation theory (GW/BSE) and also forces field based classical methods, and also their hybrids (such as QM/MM). Key properties of particular interests include optoelectronics, photovoltaics, energy-storage, photocatalysts, catalysis, transport, spintronic and thermoelectric for energy, health and environmental applications. Materials that are of prime focus include flexible organic, organic-inorganic hybrids and also low-dimensional systems. Towards this, various state-of-the-art computational models and methods are constantly being developed in the group for achieving reliable and quantitative descriptions, and also to provide predictions for new materials. For detailed research activities and recent publications, interested ones are referred to our group webpage here: https://mannaarun17.wixsite.com/manna.

Dr. Debasish Mondal’s research group are studying non-equiloibrium stat mech, both theoretical and computation aspects. The research interest of the team spans over: Stochastic thermodynamics in biochemical processes, Narrow escape problem in cellular micro-domains, Chemistry and physics of active matters, And Stochastic resetting in chemical physics. Recently they have explained how Peclet number governs transition to acceleratory restart in drift-diffusion. In a different issue the have addressed the Pseudochemotaxis in inhomogeneous active Brownian systems. Currently, the team is working on:

• Noise-induced symmetry breaking of self-regulators
• Rain with restart
• And Lossless entropic information engine

Dr. Rajib Biswas is a theoretical chemist whose research expertise covers various aspects of spectroscopic modelling. His research team develops and uses several theoretical spectroscopy methodologies to establish the structure-spectrum correlations in a quantitative way. The research group is also exploring the Structure, Dynamics and Biological Activities of Metalloproteins: They use advanced state of the art computational methodologies to study structure, dynamics and function of these special class of bio-macromolecules. Another area of interest of Dr. Biswas and his team is Water Dynamics at Surfaces & Interfaces: They investigate the rich dynamics of water in presence of different exotic surfaces and interfaces by computer simulations and phenomenological modelling approach.

Dr. Sourav Chakraborty’s group is interested in exploring the Supramolecular chemistry and Material science domain with integration with metal-oxide clusters. The research is directed toward developing interlocked molecules for energy storage applications. These inter-connected molecular assemblies exert a symphony of non-Covalent interactions triggering the molecular motion from the sub-nanometre level to the macroscopic scale. To date, these systems have shown application in signaling, molecular recognition & communication, spatial control, and catalysis etc. These systems interconvert the free energy of nonequilibrium into meaningful alternative energy rather than dissipating it merely in the form of heat. The team envisioned developing an integrated molecular scaffold with redox-active metal-oxide components that can be of great interest to storing electrons that can manifest energy storage applications, catalysis, and for the development of non-aqueous redox flow battery systems. Presently the team consists of Dr. Sourav, two PhD students, and a Master’s student to expedite their interesting research endeavor at the department. Dr. Sourav received the SERB- Startup Research grant in 2022 that will provide financial support for the research till 2024. The group welcomes visitors/ prospective students who want to know about their research or to be a part of it. The present research aspects of the group are,

• Redox-Active Inter-Locked molecules for Energy Storage.
• Molecular cluster embedded macrocycles.
• Metal-oxide grafted polymers

All these exciting research developments have widely been appreciated by researchers across the globe and resulted in a healthy number of research publications in reputed international journals. The research activities of the Department have been funded by both IIT Tirupati and Govt. of India. Professors are receiving the research grants from various funding agencies.