Advanced Ceramic Membranes and Applications

Dr. Sujoy Bose is an assistant professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Calicut. He has graduated from Durgapur Institute of Advanced Technology & Management under West Bengal University of Technology. He has finished post graduation from National Institute of Technology Durgapur. He has completed PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He has over 7 years of experience in the field of membrane technology. He is an expert in the area of developing ceramic membranes for different applications. Recently, he has introduced sawdust as a novel cheap raw material for ceramic membranes. His research interests also include material science, nanofluids etc. He has published journals in reputed peer-reviewed international journals like Materials Letters, Ceramics International, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, etc. He has served as an executive committee member of IIChE Guwahati region chapter from 2013-2014.


Dr. Chandan Das has received his Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Calcutta and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, and currently is an Associate Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at IIT Guwahati. He has guided, so far, 4 scholars for their doctoral degree, 18 M.Tech. and is guiding 8 more PhD scholars. Dr. Das is the recipient of "Dr. A.V. Rama Rao Foundation's Best Ph.D. Thesis and Research Award in Chemical Engineering/Technology" for the year 2010 from Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE). Dr. Das has authored about one hundred technical publications in peer reviewed journals and proceedings. He has authored one book entitled "Treatment of Tannery Effluent by Membrane Separation Technology" in Nova Science Publishers, USA and two book chapters. He has two patents in his credit. He has handled five sponsored projects and five consultancy projects so far. He has visited Denmark, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Japan for exchanging ideas, etc.


Being associated with various research works in the area of water and wastewater treatment, such as treatment of tannery wastewater using membrane separation technology, as well as removal of pollutants using micellar-enhanced ultrafiltration, Dr. Das has gained expertise in membrane separation technology for removing various pollutants from contaminated water and wastewater. His research activity encompasses both understanding of fundamental principles during filtration as well as the development of technology based on membrane separation. In particular, his research areas are modeling of microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, treatment of oily wastewater, tannery effluent using membrane based processes. We are exploring the detailed quantification of flux decline from fundamentals. As an offshoot of the major research, he has fabricated ceramic membranes using low cost precursors as sawdust. Catalyst is coated on the ceramic support for manufacturing catalytic membrane reactor.


He is also working on decontamination of chromium laden aqueous effluent using Spirulina platensis. He is actively involved in the productions of high value added products, namely, total phenolics, flavonoids, tocopherol, etc. from black rice as well as of 6-gingerol, vitamin C content, essential oil content from ginger of North East India.


ACHIEVEMENTS:






Separation of Cr (III) from aqueous solution by sorption on Spirulina platensis at pH 6.2. Phosphate, carboxylic and amine groups are responsible for metal ion binding. Phosphatic group has maximum attachment with ions. Dead: (adsorption + ppt) 100% (feed-20ppm) and Live: 97% (feed-100ppm)





Cr(VI) reduction into Cr(III) at acidic pH using protonated functional groups. 98% reduction at 0.5 pH. Temp-high reduction high





PCTE in ZMC reasonable Spirulina cell growth





Crossflow microfiltration of oily wastewater retains 98% oil droplets, COD reduction from 2000 to 225 ppm, combined diffusion model ( 0.01?m- 47?m)





Ceramic membrane suitable for NMP separation from coal-NMP mixture; tested upto 3rd stage; IOS, steel industry waste was utilized for ceramic membrane fabrication.





Through spiral wound membrane module, with permeate recycle had better quality compared to without permeate recycle. Laminar-Brownian diffusion model (<0.1 ?m); turbulent-shear induced (0.5-30?m)-due to clustering.





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Major research fields:


Field 1: Membrane separation technology: Dr. Vijay Singh, Dr. Sujoy Bose, Mr. Suman Saha, Mr. Kibrom Alebel Gebru, Mr. Kulbhushan Samal


Membrane modules: 1. Unstirred batch cell; 2. Stirred batch cell; 3. Crossflow cell; 4. Spiral wound; 5. Spinning basket ; 6. Tubular (catalytic); 7. Electrospun nanofiber membrane


Applications: Oily wastewater, coal-solvent mixture, fruit juice, elemental S, water and wastewater, humic acids


Field 2: Bioremediation: Dr. Mahesh Kumar Gagrai


Spirulina platensis, a blue-green microalgae removal of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) from aqueous solution


Field 3: Extraction, purification and separation of value added products from herbs, crops: Dr. Arijit Das, Mr. Abhishek Shukla, Mr. Amit Baran Das


Aloe vera, Rebaudioside (RA), aloe vara, ginger, black and red rice of North East Region of India.