Overview

The Department's total research funding approached 340 lakh INR.  The Department spans a wide range of research areas in organic synthesis, theoretical and computational chemistry, supramolecular chemistry and the chemistry of transition metal complexes, etc. The ongoing reserarch at the Department in these branches is summarised below.

• Non-dynamical electron correlation and electronic structure of radicals

  Radicals are species with one or more unpaired electrons. Because of the potential role in organic magnets, the radicals have caught special attention from chemists. Depending on the number of unpaired electrons, the radicals can be classified into monoradicals, diradicals, triradicals and so on. Electrically neutral monoradicals are commonly referred to as free radicals. While the radicals are center of attraction of chemists due to their high reactivity (due to presence of unpaired electron(s) ) and their role as reactive intermediates, the near-degeneracy in various electronic states of the radicals makes the problem challenging and demands for the use multi-determinental description of the reference anasatz so as to judiciously account for the non-dynamical electron correlation in addition to the dynamical one. We are interested in theoretical and computational development of electron-correlation methods that address the near-degeneracy in the electronic states of the above mentioned systems. In particular, we are working on equation-of-motion (EOM) and multi-reference (MR) coupled-cluster (CC) methods for electronic structure of molecules.

• Transition metal catalysed organic synthesis

  Transition metal catalysed organic reactions are an inseparable part of modern day organic synthesis. The use of Palladium as a ubiquitous metal of choice is well documented but the applications of Nickel or Cobalt complexes to bring about the desired organic transformations has not been explored extensively. Therefore, in our lab we aim to prepare various Ni and Co complexes as catalytic precursors, and then employ them to bring about interesting organic reactions such as couplings, carbocyclisations, functional group interconversions, etc. The other type of research that we do in our labs is the synthesis of organic semiconducting materials for applications in Organic Field Effect Transistors (OFETs).

• Organic light emitting devices

  Luminescent d6 metal complexes of Re(I), Ru(II), Os(II), Ir(III), Pt(II) have attracted considerable attention due to their intriguing photophysical, photochemical and excited-state redox properties and potential applications in organic light emitting devices (OLEDs), solar cells etc. The research has been focused on the design and syntheses of 5d transition metal (Ir, Pt etc.) based highly efficient triplet harvesting (phosphorescent) luminescent complexes and used them as light emitting dopant molecules in OLEDs. The solution-route syntheses of luminescent semiconducting nanomaterials and plasmonic nanomaterials in a cost-effective and simple processes and used them in light emitting diode, bio-imaging etc. are our further targets.

• Metal complexes of saccharide derived ligands and their reactivities in vivo and in vitero

  Carbohydrates are naturally occurring, cheaply available, chiral building blocks for the chemists and biologists. Coexistence of saccharides and metal ions has been well established in biological systems and plays crucial roles in a number of vitally important processes. Glycoproteins form another group of biologically active compounds where the saccharide moieties are covalently attached to the polypeptide chain and control the life process. Inspired from these fact we are tailoring the organic molecules (ligands) by either modifying the D-glucose itself via glycosylamine or coupling sugar with biologically active amino acids similarly to glycoproteins. The synthesized compound is used for either metal ion binding or biological activities. Metal complexes are used in vivo and in vitero as catalyst for different processes. Multinuclear such Cu(II) complexes have been used in selective oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols into corresponding carbonyls, proton transfer reaction, C—Cl bond activation of solvent chloroform and DNA cleavage studies.

• Steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy

  We do photophysical characterization of aromatic molecules showing intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) and twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) fluorescence. The steady-state fluorescence, time-resolved fluorescence and fluorescence anisotropic properties of these probes are explored to study the aggregation behavior of conventional surfactants, Gemini surfactants, and mixed micelles, reverse micelles, supramolecular structures of cyclodextrins, proteins, DNA, protein-surfactant interactions and DNA-surfactant interactions. We also study thermodynamics of micellization in water and water-organic solvent mixed media by conductometric method.

• Medicinal Chemistry and Synthetic Organic Chemistry

  We are highly excited to work on design and synthesis of novel organic molecules with biological importance. The synthesized molecules are evaluated for anticancer, c-Src kinase inhibition, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial activities. The lead molecule is identified and then structure-activity relationship (SAR) is studied. In addition to look for biologically active compounds, we also work on development of novel reaction methodologies for synthesis of organic compounds with emphasis on use of eco-friendly reagents and conditions.