Prof. Swadhin K. Mandal
Professor, IISER-Kolkata
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences-2018
About the Speaker
Professor Swadhin Kumar Mandal is an Indian organometallic chemist and a professor at the department of chemical sciences of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata. Also an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, He is known for his studies in the fields of catalysis, new drug development and material chemistry. He heads a laboratory, “Swadhin K. Mandal's Sensitive Lab”, which works with a main motive of expanding the Organometallic Chemistry beyond its catalytic application to the Materials Chemistry with an interdisciplinary approach. He has been awarded with Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in Chemical Sciences, one of the highest award for Science in India
Title of the Talk
"Mimicking Transition Metals during Catalysis".
One of the major concerns for today’s World has been the development of processes, which are sustainable without destroying our limited resources and environment. In this regard, the development of environmentally benign and cost-effective catalysts is ideal. Transition metals are often used in catalysis for their excellent redox switching behaviour during catalytic cycles. However, there is an urge to develop transition metal free catalysis due to various factors, which seeverly compromises the sustainability of whole process such as expenses, low-abundance and associated toxicity of heavy metals. The present work conceptulizes on the fundamental understanding of organometallic chemistry how typically a metal works during catalysis. The concept is capitalized based on an organic molecule (named as phenalenyl based molecule) which can accept electrons, store and delivers the way a typical transition metal such as palladium functions in a coupling reaction. This concept is described as “ Transition Metal Mimicking Catalysis”.