Anjali Valadi Palliyalil is another of our successful students who has won a prestigious scholarship in the Brno Ph.D. Talent competition organized by JCMM. Her supervisor is Dr. Sanjay Gopal Ullattil.
JCMM organizes this competition every year for doctoral students from four partner universities in Brno. The scholarship is awarded to the 25 best students who convince the expert committee of the exceptional nature of their results to date and the quality of their proposed scientific project.
Project Multicomponent Mesocrystals for Light-driven Pollutant Degradation and Polymerization (MULTI-LEAP) focuses on microwave synthesis and the application of multicomponent mesocrystals (MMCs) to address two urgent societal challenges: environmental cleanup and eco-friendly polymer production. Mesocrystal, a highly ordered 3D structure of nanocrystals, offer enhanced charge separation, high surface area and porosity, high photochemical stability, and fine tunable bandgaps, making MMCs exceptionally promising photocatalysts.
This work builds on our team’s recent microwave techniques, which use one-pot strategies to produce complex TiO2 based multicomponent mesocrystals. Microwave synthesis was selected for its rapid, uniform heating and the precise structures that traditional methods cannot achieve. The project aims to apply the MMCs to:
- Photodegradation of microplastics and antibiotic pollutants, tackling serious environmental and health issues.
- Photopolymerization of aniline and similar monomers to create conducting polymers (PANI, PPy, PTh) under solvent-free, oxidant-free, room-temperature conditions – a truly green alternative to traditional methods.
Combining materials synthesis, advanced structural analysis (XRD, TEM, XPS, Raman), and photocatalytic testing, the project provides comprehensive training in functional materials, environmental chemistry, and green photochemistry. The goal is to develop a novel class of multifunctional mesocrystals with high photocatalytic efficiency and innovative applications in pollutant degradation and sustainable production of conducting polymers.
