Main Research Activities
DSSC is a very well-known topic since last few decades by which the new world sees hope of having electricity without fossil fuels and nuclear plants. Many nations already have adopted this extremely useful device to produce electricity and are investing a huge amount of money seeing its potential towards solving energy crisis which does not produce greenhouse gases and causes global warming. Although its highly useful and researchers are using inexpensive organic dyes, even natural dyes to make it more reachable to everybody. One of the major issues for DSSC devices is its efficiency (max 14.3%). Researchers are continuously trying to make a better device. There are lot of theories and experimental evidences to explain the internal science behind how a DSSC device works and why the efficiency and the stability are still issues even today. There are reports which shows same photosensitizer provides different results if different electrolytes being used. Therefore, it could be interpreted that electrolyte is one of the factors which still need attention of researchers and it can be improved (in principle) in terms of various aspects for example photo and electrochemical stability, reversibility, etc. Since last decade researchers are working on developing new and more stable electrolytes which are promising. Our research lies in the region of developing stable electrolytes which can provide an improved life time and better efficiency for a specific DSSC device, and more expectedly we will work towards an ideal DSSC device with much better efficiency and stability.Academic Training
- Postdoctoral Researcher at LRCS (under CNRS and UPJV), France
With Dr. Frédéric Sauvage and Dr. Sébastien Gottis
April 2017 – Present
Project: Electrolytes for DSSC
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of South Carolina, USA
February 2015 – February 2017 (2 years)
With Prof. Aaron Vannucci
Project: Photoredox catalysis
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow at IISER Bhopal, India
February 2014 - December 2014 (10 months)
With Dr. Amit Paul
Project: Electrocatalytic water oxidation
- Postdoctoral Research Associate at Durham University, UK
November 2012 - March 2013 (4 months)
With Prof. Paul J. Low
Project: Photocatalytic water oxidation
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Dublin City University, Ireland
January 2012 - September 2012 (8 months)
With Prof. Johannes G. Vos and Dr. Mary T. Pryce
Project: Photocatalytic CO2 reduction
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Synthetic Organometallic Chemistry, 2012, Dublin City University, Ireland
Supervisors: Prof Johannes G. Vos and Dr. Mary T. Pryce
Thesis: Synthesis and characterisation of polypyridyl metal complexes for new fuels
- Junior Research Fellow at Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India
September 2007 - November 2008 (1 year 2 months)
Project: Surfactant synthesis
- Master, Medicinal Chemistry, 2007, Sikkim Manipal University of Health, Medical and Technological Sciences, India
Master thesis: Synthesis of metal carbonyl complexes
Professional skills
- Synthesis: Air and moisture sensitive (Schlenk-line, Glove-box)
- Photoredox catalysis for C-C cross-coupling reactions and C-N bond formation
- Molecular photocatalyst and electrocatalyst for CO2 reduction, water-splitting
- Characterization (NMR, UV-Vis, Emission, FTIR, Mass-Spec, CHN)
- Electrochemistry (CV, DPV, catalysis, spectro-electrochemistry)
- Ion-Chromatography, GC, GC-MS, HPLC
C-Programming, Scientific softwares: EndNote, ISISI, ACD Labs 12 (Including 1D and 2D NMR processor), ChemDraw15 and Origin Lab Pro 8, Chromeleon IC, CHI software Echem).
Tunable Redox Potential, Optical Properties, and Enhanced Stability of Modified Ferrocene-Based Complexes
Avishek Paul, Raffaele Borrelli, Houssny Bouyanfif, Sébastien Gottis, Frédéric Sauvage
ACS Omega, 2019
