The Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Indore was started in 2009 with a vision of establishing a centre of excellence and a state of the art facilities in chemical sciences research, education and scientific leadership in technology transfer to industry. Today, the department is home to 19 faculty members who are eminent in probing fundamental, molecular level of chemical reactions and properties of matter and apply the intellectual understanding in ways that will impact the world we live in. The department has more than 100 PhD students, 2 postdoctoral research scholars, 3 JRF(project) and two DST-Women Scientists who carry out cutting-edge research in various frontier areas of catalysis, drug discovery, main group chemistry, materials chemistry, nanotechnology, organic light-harvesting materials, organometallics, pharmaceuticals, asymmetric synthesis, biosensor metal clusters, molecular fluorescence spectroscopy, computational aspects of materials/alloys and molecular inhibitors for disease targets. Research on these areas is acknowledged by the scientific world in the form of international research publications and in several lectures at national and international conferences.
The main focus of the department is to translate the fundamental research done in the laboratory into innovative applications for the welfare of society. The members of our research family grow continuously with an inflow of 8-10 research aspirants every semester, thereby conveying to the onlookers the presence of a rapidly growing scientific community at Indore.
The department has pledged to train and develop next-generation scientific leaders by providing an opportunity for independent and meticulous thinking in research problems related to healthcare, energy and the environment. The graduate students are exposed to learning in an environment of modern facilities par with international standards to fulfil their scientific passion for creativity. The chemistry department also provides introductory chemistry knowledge to a large number of students other than science Departments. We have a full-fledged two-year master’s program in chemistry (since the academic year of 2013), where the attention is focused for one full year by master’s students on real research problems in a laboratory rather than a traditional two-year theoretical program with limited scope for research exercise. This will slow down the wheel of the intellectual drain in India and absorb our creative master’s students to pursue their research interests, to full satisfaction, within our country.
Our department is well equipped with state-of-art sophisticated instrumentation facilities to facilitate research in almost all areas of chemistry and interdisciplinary research. The main source of external funding comes from CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) and DST (Department of Science and Technology). Also, the toxic and hazardous substances generated in the chemistry laboratories during day-to-day research activities are being disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner by following world-class research practice. This ensures we at the chemistry department are very serious about our surroundings where we live and don’t neglect the cost one has to pay for environmental pollution. This is the first of its kind among IITs and Universities in India.
We suggest all prospective students and other visitors explore our website to learn more about our department.
Keeping in view of frontier developments in Energy, Environment and Healthcare, research in the Department of Chemistry is focused on:
Energy: Design and production of novel materials and catalysts for harvesting energy from natural sources
Environment: Develop sensors for controlling environmental pollution, water purification and betterment of living conditions
Healthcare: Design, synthesis and delivery of new drug molecules for diagnosis and treatment of various ailments
