Prof. Ranajit Mondal
Assistant Professor,
Chemical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad
:
Ranajit Mondal
Dr. Ranajit Mondal is a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. He obtained his Ph.D. from IIT Madras with a focus on colloidal and interfacial science and subsequently carried out postdoctoral research at IIT Bombay in the area of soft matter physics and nanoscience.
His broad research interests lie in the fundamentals of colloids and interfacial science in designing sustainable and functional materials for food, pharmaceuticals, sensing, and separation applications. His research interests are understanding the evaporative patterning of colloids, fracture mechanics in the colloidal film, Pickering emulsion and foams, and designing particle-polymer hybrid materials. His recent work explores how structure and patterns evolve in soft and complex systems during drying under drying configurations and mechanical instabilities in thin films, offering insights relevant to the development of functional materials. His research is grounded in detailed experimental observations, supported by modeling and imaging techniques, with implications for material processing, coatings, environmental systems, and microscale transport.
He has authored several publications in leading international journals and is involved in collaborative projects that bridge chemical engineering with physics, materials science, and fluid mechanics. He is also actively engaged in mentoring students and fostering an environment of interdisciplinary research.
Dr. Mondal's contributions enrich the broader academic discourse on soft materials and transport processes, providing valuable insights into complex phenomena relevant across diverse application domains.
Title: Moving Toward Sustainable Pharma: A comprehensive assessment of energy consumption
and conservation potential
The pharmaceutical sector routinely has to maintain crucial environmental conditions for production, which makes it incredibly energy-intensive. Unlike in other commercial industries, the primary energy consumption in the pharma sector is in heating and cooling systems, apart from the process itself. In a typical pharmaceutical plant, various utilities such as refrigeration systems, pumps, fans, and air compressors contribute 50-60% of the overall electrical energy consumption. Whereas, in the production unit reactors, centrifuges, and vacuum pumps contribute between 20-25%, effluent treatment and solvent recovery units contribute 15-25%, and other miscellaneous units contribute approximately 5% of the overall electrical energy consumption of the plant. In the case of thermal energy consumption, the effluent treatment and the solvent recovery system have a significant share of 60-70%, whereas process heating and other miscellaneous contribute to 30-40% of the total thermal energy consumption.
Energy efficiency in pharmaceutical industries is essential for reducing operational costs and minimizing the environmental impact. In this talk, I will briefly discuss a few case studies on how regular energy audits help to identify the inefficiencies and areas for improvement in implementing targeted energy-saving measures in pharmaceutical industries.