Vivek Polshettiwar

Biography

I am Reader in the Division of Chemical Sciences at TIFR Mumbai. After my Ph.D. in 2005, I did my first postdoctoral research at École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier (ENSCM), France. I then moved to United State Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) (2007-2009) as ORISE research associate to research nano-catalysis for green chemistry. Then, I started his independent group of nanocatalysis at KAUST (2009-2013). Currently I am working as a reader (Ass. Prof.) in TIFR, Mumbai.

I have published nearly 90 articles with h-index 47 and more than 7800 citations; in high-impact journals such as Angewandte Chemie, ACS Nano, RSC Chemical Science, ChemComm, Chemistry-A European Journal, ACS Catalysis, ChemSusChem, Journal of Organic Chemistry, Green Chemistry etc, including reviews in journals such as Chemical Reviews, ACS Accounts and Chemical Society Reviews, book chapters, patents (US, PCT, GCC). I have also edited one book from the RSC green chemistry series and another one for Wiley on nanocatalysis. Several of his articles are rated as Top-10, Top-5, Hot article and appeared on journal’s front covers.

I have received several international recognitions. I was awarded as Top-25 cited author in 2011 by Tetrahedron and Young Scientist Award at 8th International Conference on Diffusion in Solids and Liquids (DSL-2012). I also received Asian Rising Stars lectureship award at 15th Asian Chemical Congress (ACC), Singapore (2013), from Nobel Laureate Professor Ei-ichi Negish. In Feb 2015, I was admitted as a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and also as 175 Faces of Chemistry worldwide by RSC. This year (2016), I was recognized as Emerging Investigator by RSC J. Mat. Chem.  I have been also awarded prestigious “Bronze Medal” by Chemical Research Society of India (CRSI).

In the nano-catalysis (NanoCat) laboratory, we are designing and synthesizing various nano-materials (silica, metal oxides, metals, etc) with specific shapes, sizes and morphologies and then evaluating their use as a nano-catalysts for the development of sustainable protocols for various challenging reactions like photocatalysis, CO2 capture and conversion to fine chemicals, environmental remediation as well as C-H activation, C-C coupling, oxidation, metathesis, hydrogenolysis, hydrogenation reactions. We are also designing nanomaterials for Solar Cells, SERS, Battery and Super-Capacitor applications. A guiding hypothesis is that catalytic efficiency (activity, kinetics, selectivity and stability) can be controlled by varying the shape and morphology of nanomaterials/nanocatalysts.

Awards