Organ-on-chip technologies are emerging as important tools for creating realistic laboratory models of human tissues, with applications in drug testing and disease studies. This project aims to design, fabricate, and experimentally validate microfluidic organ-on-chip platforms that mimic essential features of real tissues. The work will involve computer-aided design of microscale devices, soft-lithography or laser-based fabrication, basic material and surface characterization, and operation of microfluidic systems under controlled flow conditions.

Isotactic polypropylene (iPP) is the second most produced plastic (nearly 100 million tons/annum). iPP is a semicrystalline thermoplastic, and is typically processed from the melt state into final products. Thermoplastics can be melted and re-processed: therefore, iPP can, in principle, be recycled thermomechanically. However, melt processing takes place at elevated temperatures, typically near 240oC and can result in scission of molecular bonds. This results in deterioration of properties of the plastic.

Catalysis and Process intensification in the manufacture of fine chemicals: The work involves identification of catalyst, and the best possible reaction conditions for the process of given chemical (e.g. furfuryl alcohol, acetyl furan). A process flow diagram will be developed and simulate to study the techno-economic analysis. 

Reduction in silver loss in copper electro-fining process. The ore used for copper manufacturing contains precious metals like silver. The project involves study of the existing industrial process in detail. Identify the reasons for the silver loss and provide solutions and create a proof of concept in the lab to taken for commercialization. 

Sustainability through circular economy in foundry sand reclamation. The project deals with involves process intensification in the foundry sand reclamation process developed by IITB. The objective is to reduce carbon and water footprint without compromising the cost-effectiveness. 

Our group has recently introduced a new class of materials, comprising polyethylene chains covalently grafted to a layered inorganic substrate (See: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsapm.3c00649). This novel material, that we refer to as PE-clay, has remarkable and unprecedented properties. For example, it exhibits adhesion to metal surfaces with strengths that are over 100X that for regular polyethylene, even at an inorganic loading of less than 2%. Further, the modulus of this material is significantly higher than that for polyethylene of comparable crystallinity.

Data-driven machine learning models are increasingly being used to generate stable materials which form the basis for rational design of novel catalysts and battery materials. These models are trained on a database of stable materials computed using first principles methods. Based on this database, architectures such as the variational auto-encoder, generative adversarial networks and (more recently) the transformer learn an implicit probability distribution. This distribution is used to decides if a given material is stable. 

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are special proteins without a fixed 3D shape, like wiggly strings that flex to do key jobs in cells, but in diseases like Parkinson's (alpha-synuclein) or Alzheimer's (tau), mutations make them clump into toxic tangles harming brain cells. This project uses molecular dynamics (MD) simulations—computer models that mimic atomic wiggles over time—to watch how these changes spread along the protein chain, spotting "switches" that trigger clumping.

Intrinsically disordered proteins are proteins that lack a stable three dimensional structure. In many cases they control vital cellular processes or have been associated with disease. In this project, we use computer simulations to study a protein called IAPP that clumps up harmfully in type 2 diabetes, killing the cells that make insulin. Lacking fixed structure, IAPP's flexible conformations shift with mutations toward fibril-prone states that block insulin from working properly.

About the project: