Abstract:
The world is facing two major problems these days. These are: (i) Rapidly developing water and air pollution and (ii) Upcoming shortage of natural resources of energy. Advanced Oxidation Processes are green chemical pathways, where photocatalysis has emerged as one of the promising processes. It can provide a solution to both these burning issues and that too simultaneously. Hydrogen has been long advocated as a fuel of future as all conventional fuels are likely to be exhausted within coming two decades or so. It can be generated from photosplitting of water photocatalytically. Global warming is another existing challenge of concern, and here, the carbon dioxide has been considered as the main culprit. Carbon dioxide can also be reduced photocatalytically to some useful value added fuels. But many photocatalysts have two major limitations. In most of the cases, their activity is limited because of little or no absorption in visible range and rapid recombination of electron- hole pairs. Both these limitations can be overcome by increasing the photocatalytic activity through modifying semiconductors by use of cocatalysts, composite formation, metal or non-metal doping, sensitization, S-Scheme, Z-scheme, etc. This will be discussed with some other interesting applications of photocatalysis.
Biography:
Prof. Suresh C. Ameta obtained his Masters Degree from University of Udaipur and was awarded Gold Medal-1970. He secured First position in M. Phil-1978 in Vikram University, Ujjain (M. P.). He also obtained Ph. D degree from this University in 1980. He has served as Professor & Head, Department of Chemistry, North Gujarat University, Patan (1994) and M. L. Sukhadia University, Udaipur (2002-2005) & Head, Department of Polymer Science (2005-2008). He also served as Dean, P.G. Studies for a period of four years (2004-2008). He has served as Dean, Faculty of Science, PAHER University, Udaipur for six years (2011-2017). Presently, he is working as Professor of Eminence (Distinguished Professor of Chemistry) in Pacific University, Udaipur. Prof. Ameta has occupied the coveted position of President, Indian Chemical Society, Kotkata (2000-2001) and is now lifelong Advisor (2002-continue). He was awarded a number of prizes during his career like National prize twice for writing Chemistry books in Hindi (1976 & 1978), Scientist of the Year Award (2002), Prof. M. N. Desai Award (2004), Prof. G. V. Bakore Award (2007), Prof. W. U. Malik Award (2008), National Teacher Award (2011), and above all, Life Time Achievement Awards by Indian Chemical Society, Kolkata (2011), Indian Council of Chemists, Agra (2015), Association of Chemistry Teachers, Mumbai (2018), North Gujarat University, Patan (2022). He has successfully guided 110 students for Ph. D. Dr. Ameta has more than 450 research papers and 36 books to his credit. He has contributed Chapters in Books published by Trans-Tech, Switzerland: Nova Science, Taylor & Francis, and Apple Academic Press, USA. Three books on Green Chemistry, Microwave Assisted Organic Synthesis and Chemical Applications of Symmetry and Group Theory have been published by Apple Academic Press, USA. Two more books on Solar Energy Conversion & Storage and Photocatalysis; An Emerging Technology has been released by Taylor & Francis, USA and a book on Waste Water Treatments by AOPs by Elsevier. He has completed 5 Major Research Projects by DST, UGC, CSIR, and Ministry of Energy, Govt. of India. Prof. Ameta has delivered lectures and chaired sessions in National Conferences organized in almost every part of this country. He is also reviewer of number of International Journals. Prof. Ameta has an experience of more than 50 years of Teaching and Research. Indian Chemical Society, Kolkata has published a Special issue of Journal of Indian Chemical Society in December 2008 to felicitate him on his 60th birthday and has instituted an Award in his name as Prof. Suresh C. Ameta Award to be given to a senior chemist of repute from 2003 onwards. He has delivered Lectures in International Conferences at Tokyo, Japan Hangzhou & Kunming, China, Valencia, Spain, Boston, USA, and is invited to deliver lectures at Singapore, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Spain and Rome, Italy in 2024. Above all, he has pointed out some problems in h-index and proposed a complimentary index as Ameta or A-index for further improving h-index and for this, he was granted a copyright for this improvement.
