FOCAL THEME LECTURES

Technology Transformation for a Green Future

Prof. Indranil Manna 

Prof. Indranil Manna is an accomplished academician and a researcher with wide ranging research interests in the fields of microstructure-property-parameter correlation in nanometric and amorphous solids, laser and plasma assisted surface engineered components, bainitic and ODS steel and nano-fluid. His significant contribution in the study of amorphous/nanocrystalline Al-alloys, nano-fluid and laser/plasma assisted surface engineering received intense attention from the scientific community and is highly lauded.

Born on January 22, 1961 in Kolkata, Prof. Indranil Manna obtained B. Engg. from Calcutta University (BE College), M. Tech. from IIT Kanpur and PhD from IIT Kharagpur. After a brief stint at Mishra Dhatu Nigam, Hyderabad, he joined IIT, Kharagpur in 1985 as a Lecturer and rose to the position of Full Professor in 2003. He was in this position till he joined CSIR-CGCRI as Director in 2010. He served as the Director of IIT Kanpur (2012 -2017). During this period, he concurrently served and continues to serve even now as the National Coordinator of IMPacting Research INnovation and Technology (IMPRINT).    He also served as the Chairman of the Research Council of CSIR-AMPRI, Bhopal; Member of the Research Councils of GAIL India, BHEL, Governing Body of Indo US Science and Technology Forum (IUSS&TF), and the Executive Council of AICTE. Presently he continues to serve as the Member, Board of Governors, IIEST, Shibpur and a Member of the Academic Council, KIIT Bhubaneswar. Before taking up administrative responsibility, Professor Manna was a faculty in physical metallurgy, phase transformations, material characterization and surface engineering at IIT Kharagpur for 25 years. During this period, he also visited as a guest scientist at different renowned Institutions/Universities abroad with teaching or research assignments. Prof. Manna has over 250 journal publications and supervised over 20 PhD theses. Professor Manna is a recipient of several awards and honours including MRSI Distinguished Lecture prize 2017 at the MRSI-AGM held at IIT Bombay, Fellowship of the ‘The World Academy of Sciences’ (2016), Gopal Tripathy Memorial Lecture Award (Banaras Hindu University, Chemical Engineering) in 2015, TWAS Prize in Engineering Sciences (2013) and many more.

Dr. Sebastian C. Peter

Dr. Sebastian C. Peter received his MSc (2000) from St. Thomas College, Thrissur, Calicut University and MTech (2002) from Cochin University of Science and Technology. He received his Ph. D. in chemistry from the University of Münster, Germany (2006). He was a post-doctoral fellow at Max Plank Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden, Germany (2006-07) and Northwestern University, USA (2007-10). Dr. Peter joined as a faculty fellow at New Chemistry Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore in 2010. His broad research interests include the development of solid-state inorganic materials for various applications ranging fuel cell, CO₂ reduction and in condensed matter physics. He has more than 210 peer reviewed publications and five patents. He was invited and attended around 100 national and international conferences. He is the recipient of Young Investigator awards from ACS (2013), RSC (2017) and IOP (2016). He was awarded Ramanujan fellowship (2010), MRSI medal (2016), Swarna Jayanti Fellowship in the category of Chemical Science (2018) and CRSI medal (2020), SMC Medal (2022) and IAAM fellow (2022). He is a member of American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, ASM international, Chemical Research Society of India, Material Research Society of India, International Union of Crystallography, Indian National Young Academy of Science and Society for Material Chemistry of India. He is the founder and director of the start-up “Breathe Applied Sciences Pvt Ltd” and entered the final round of the NRG-COSIA XPRIZE 20 million USD prize on waste CO₂ utilization. His team is the only one team in the final round of the competition earning half a million USD as milestone prize. Breathe Applied Sciences Pvt Ltd has been selected as one of the best 100 start-ups by Karnataka state Government in 2017 through ELEVATE-100. Clean Equity, Monaco (2019) selected CO₂ reduction technology as the second best in the global level. His team scaled-up the technology CO₂ to methanol from the lab to pilot level with a capacity of 300 kg CO₂ per day. In 2021, Technology Development Board of the DST awarded National Technology Award for this development. In Dec 2021, his start-up has been selected as the winner of the KPMG ENRich21 on the theme The Global Corporation: preparing for the Low-Carbon World. He also received the National Prize on CO₂ reduction and green hydrogen production instituted by CNR Rao foundation and ETU of JNCASR in 2022. Dr. Peter is also featured in the “75 under 50: Scientists Shaping Today’s India” by the DST and selected for J C Bose Diamond Jubilee Lecture Award by IAAM. In 2023, Dr. Peter led Breathe to win the competition Materials Next 4.0 hosted by Tata Steel. Dr. Peter Received Research Partnerships and Industry Translation Medal from Chirantan Rasayan Sanstha and Materials Science Annual Prize from MRSI in 2023. Dr. Peter is also part of the Editorial Advisory Board of JACS, Chemical Science and Journal of Solid-State Chemistry.