Scientists, academicians, and young researchers from across the country deliberated on diverse fields of chemistry related to nanoscience and nanotechnology and possible collaborations in these fields at, Chem@Nano ’21.
Chem@Nano ’21 is the first annual conference of Energy and Environment Unit (EEU) of Institute of Nano Science and Technology (INST), Mohali, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India organized on 10th and 11th September 2021 in Mohali, Punjab as a hybrid meeting. It was attended by 130 participants including 12 expert speakers from various academic and scientific institutes across India. It covered the diverse fields of chemistry related to nanoscience and nanotechnology.
Prof Amitava Patra, Director INST introduced INST’s new campus to the scientists, academicians, and students. He opined that the conference will provide an excellent platform for students and faculty to enrich their knowledge in fundamental understanding and help them in learning the current advances in the field of materials chemistry for energy, environment and optoelectronic applications.
Prof Kamalakannan Kailasam, HoD of Energy and Environment Unit (EEU), INST Mohali, and joint convener of the conference provided the glimpses of the ongoing research and manpower training in EEU. He reminded the scientific community about the need of the renewable and green energy sources and the urgency to develop new technologies for the emerging energy needs. He also mentioned few of the technologies developed in INST to the scientific audience.
The participants from across the country shared their scientific findings and had brainstorming discussions in related areas of Energy, Environment and Soft nanomaterials and deliberated about the possible collaborations. This conference focused on nanomaterials for applications in the diverse fields of Energy, Environment, Optoelectronics and related areas with special emphasis on photocatalytic water splitting, understanding basic phenomena in solar cells, heterogeneous catalysis, electrocatalysis, electrochemical storage, tissue engineering and sensing
Prof G U Kulkarni, President of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore described the role of nanomaterials, especially the use of metallic nanoparticles in the area of artificial intelligence. Prof A K Ganguli, Deputy Director, IIT Delhi and the Founding Director of INST Mohali discussed the role of heterojunction nanocomposites and their application in the photocatalytic water splitting to produce hydrogen, the renewable energy source. Prof H N Ghosh, J C Bose Fellow, INST Mohali shared his recent research activities in the areas of solar cells and insisted about the fundamental understanding of the devices using ultrafast techniques. The PhD students actively participated in the conference and presented their research work.
Prof Prakash P Neelakandan, INST Mohali, the joint convener, stressed upon the need of such conferences for enlightening the young researchers and to nurture their talent. He reminded the scientific audience about the importance of being updated on breakthrough developments in their domain which will help them in achieving their goals. He thanked the speakers, faculty and students for their active participation.
