Vinay A Juvekar

Location

0, New PG Lab Annex

Contact Information

call

  • +91 (22) 2576 7236 (O)

Email

  • vaj [at] che [dot] iitb [dot] ac [dot] in

Vinay A Juvekar

Emeritus Fellow

Professor

Background

  1. B.Chem. Engg. Bombay University Bombay 1970

  2. Ph.D. (Tech.) Bombay University Bombay 1976

Conducting polymers

Picture showing electrochromism (revealed by optical absorption spectroscopy) in polyaniline film associated with its energy band structure. The same band structure is also elucidated through Fe2+-Fe3+ redox reaction in the film.

Conducting polymers possess a property called pseudocapacitance, which make them very attractive as energy storage devices for high power density applications. Dynamics of these polymer electrodes involves a number of charge relaxation modes. We have been able to determine the energy band structure of polyaniline and quantified the capacitance and energy density of these bands. This work would be useful in rational design of conducting polymer-based capacitors.

Liquid Emulsion Membranes (LEM)

(a)Water drops suspended in paraffin + SPAN 80 (75 mg/ mL oil) Spontaneous emulsification of paraffin inside water drops causes distortion of drops. (b) Flocks of extremely fine paraffin droplets inside water drop

LEM technique is useful in extracting low concentration of metals/ pollutants from effluent streams. Due to simultaneous extraction and stripping, this technique is practically free from equilibrium limitation, which makes it economically very attractive. A main limitation with this technique is poor stability of water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion. According to our analysis poor integrity of W/O emulsion is caused by Marangoni instability, leading to spontaneous emulsification/ flocculation of oil phase inside water-droplets. Light scattering/interfacial rheology techniques have been used to quantify the spontaneous emulsification and eliminate it by proper choice of surfactant systems.

Friction

Comparison of model predictions with experimental data on dynamic friction stress vs. sliding velocity for varying molecular weights of PDMS

Quantification of friction between soft polymeric solids on hard surfaces is important in many applications. We are developing a mathematical model which involves dynamics of adsorption, stretching and desorption of polymer chains dangling from polymer surface in contact with the hard surface. We use the model to quantify static and dynamic friction and stick-slip/stress relaxation phenomena.

Open Bipolar Electrolysis

This is a powerful technique for bulk electrolysis. Here a high electric field polarizes electrodes suspended in an electrolyte so that the cathodic and anodic reactions occur on the two sides of each electrode. Thus a large electrode area can be packed in a small space, which makes this technique very attractive for processes involving low conductivity of electrolytes. Our focus is to develop mathematical model for bipolar electrolysis involving single and multiple particles.