Seminars

Abstract: At the transition to the nanoscale interfacial and finite-size effects become significant which are often neglected in phenomenological models. The properties and the dynamics of dispersed phases contact lines and nanostructured systems are hard to capture experimentally due to the high resolution which is required and the short time scale on which phase transitions and fluctuations may occur. Therefore in the present work massively-parallel molecular dynamics simulation with the scalable code ls1 mardyn [1] is applied to wetting phenomena.

Abstract: Neural stem cells (NSC’s) often give rise to mixed population of cells during differentiation. However the dynamical origin of these mixed states is poorly understood. In this article our mathematical modeling study demonstrates that the bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) driven differential differentiation dynamics of NSC’s in central and peripheral nervous systems essentially function through two distinct bi-stable switches that are mutually interconnected.

Abstract: Global warming and energy shortage raise the concern about greenhouse gases and renewable energy. One of the best routes to covert CO2 into renewable energy and simultaneously reduce the concentration of CO2 in atmosphere is photosynthesis[1]. This study explored the photocatalytic hydrogenation of CO2 by a novel twin reactor to mimic photosynthesis process under light irradiation. The Z-scheme of water splitting is comprised of H2-photocatalyst and O2-photocatalyst with aid of electron transfer mediator to produce hydrogen and oxygen respectively [2].

Abstract: The flow of droplets in confined channels is common in a variety of applications including polymer and emulsion processing as well as oil recovery from porous materials. More recently droplets in microfluidic devices have evolved as a means to conduct chemical reactions in small controlled volumes that can be manipulated easily. In the first part of my talk I will present results for the steady flow of droplets in straight cylindrical channels and their transient response to a sudden expansion in the channel diameter.

Brief Profile of Professor M M Sharma Professor Man Mohan Sharma obtained Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (1958) from UDCT (ICT) and subsequently MSc (Tech) in 1960. He obtained PhD (Chemical Engineering) (1964) at Cambridge University with PV Danckwerts. In 1964 he returned to India as Professor at the University of Bombay and later became Director of the University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT) now ICT (Institute of Chemical Technology — A Deemed University). He remained as Professor for 33 years at UDCT along with 8 years as Director of this Institute.

Abstract: Catalytic conversion of biomass to value-added chemicals provides renewable alternatives to a wide range of products of interest in our everyday life ranging from monomers bio-compatible plastics to environmentally friendly detergent cleaners. These conversion processes often involve complex multistep reactions such as hydrogenation/hydrogenolysis oxidation dehydrogenation dehydration condensation and amination. The challenge is to develop active selective and stable catalysts to meet the economic and environmental compatibility.

Abstract: Nonlinear dynamics is some 400 years old. European monarchs of the time cared about their ships surviving the rough Atlantic waves and thus Euler Lagrange Newton and many distinguished others worked on nonlinear wave equations. In 1955 Fermi Pasta Ulam and Tsingou were the first to examine the dynamics of a mass-spring chain where the springs were weakly nonlinear and showed that the system had great trouble equilibrating.

Abstract: Gliomas are known to be highly heterogenous tumors in their both genetic content as well as tumor microenvironment. Active DNA demetylation in the hypoxic interiors mediated by TET proteins appear to contribute to the cellular complexity and genomic instability associated with these difficult-to-treat and highly recurrent tumors. In recent times epigenetic regulators are being identified as drivers of oncogenesis and are being considered as therapeutic targets. During my Ph.D.

Abstract: Absolute temperature and viscosity measurement and control at microscale dimensions is very important for microrheological measurements. Present off-line techniques cannot provide absolute values and have very low spatial resolution. Power spectral density analyses of optical tweezers have been used earlier for ‘on the fly’ calibration from Brownian fluctuation of optically trapped bead in frequency domain. However such techniques are computationally intensive and only works for Newtonian fluids where the trapping exists for a sufficiently long time.

Abstract: All the materials exhibit tremendous scientific and application oriented opportunities at nanoscale. The applications of nano-materials can be in the field of thermal management energy storage drug delivery metal adsorption catalysis ultrafiltration etc. However in spite of all these interesting applications the lab scale inventions often lag the capacity of real word scale up owing to high cost of manufacturing stemming from slow speed high clean room cost etc.