Department of Chemistry
Seminar Announcement
Date/Time/Venue
Title/Speaker
30 Mar (Wed)
4.30pm –
5.30pm
Nanotechnology Enabled Green Nose to
Smell Mercury
@ S8 Level 3
Executive
Classroom
Professor Suresh K Bhargava
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)
Australia
Host: Professor J J Vittal
About the Speaker
Prof Bhargava is the Deputy Pro Vice- Chancellor (Int. Res. Links) and a
University Distinguished Professor at School of Applied Sciences, RMIT
University, Melbourne, Australia. He was the foundation Dean of School of
Applied Sciences at RMIT till 2010. He is also on the Board of Directors of one
of the Aditya Birla Group of Industries, India. He is an elected fellow of the
Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Royal Society
of Chemistry and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.
Prof Bhargava’s research interests include environment and advanced materials, industrial
chemistry, catalysis, gold nanoparticles, and nanoscience in biotechnology, abatement of air
pollution , innovation in environmental technologies ,and large scale industrial plants. His
research in the field of Catalytic Wet oxidation was the catalyst for a number of acclaimed
green technology innovations such as the removal of organics from Bayer Process by CWAO
in alumina refineries, mercury detection and odor abatement from Alumina Refinery
Condensate, rejuvenation of car exhaust catalyst, and waste treatment in magnesium
sulphate from Nickel Laterite processing. He has three industry related patents and over 160
peer reviewed journal papers in prestigious journals, more than 100 conference papers and
many more ( >60) industrial confidential reports.
Abstract
Mercury is a common environmental pollutant that bioaccumulates and is neurotoxic.
Elemental gaseous mercury has an average atmospheric residence time of 5.7 years before it
is consumed by aquatic life and released into the food chain. The toxic metal mercury
remains a threat to the environment and public health despite of number of efforts by the
government bodies world-wide. Environmental contamination of Hg vapor by human
activities has resulted from mining operations, smelting, industrial discharges, burning fossil
fuels, waste incineration, coal thermal power stations and weapons production and medical
disposal and are the latest target of federal and state clean air regulations.
Breakthrough research undertaken by Professor Bhargava’s group at RMIT has used
nanotechnology principles to form well defined gold nano-structured surfaces.. By applying
these novel nano-structured surfaces to cheap mass sensitive transducer platforms, such as
the humble Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM), a significant improvement in sensor
repeatability and sensitivity has been achieved. For instance, sensors equipped with the gold
nano-engineered surfaces have shown an approximate 180% sensitivity increase over nonmodified surfaces when operating at temperatures up to ~90°C over many months of
continuous testing. What is more promising is that these tests have been successfully
conducted in the presence of ammonia and high humidity contaminated streams, which are
representative of the concentrations found in Australian alumina refinery effluent streams.
This talk will also discuss in details the novel techniques to engineer nano-surfaces for
various other applications.
All are Welcome