Nanocellulose-based Sustainable Composites

Suprakas Sinha Ray is a Chief Research Scientist and Manager of the Centre for Nanostructures and Advanced Materials, DSI-CSIR Nanotechnology Innovation Centre, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria, South Africa. He received his PhD degree in Physical Chemistry at the University of Calcutta, India, in 2001, and was a recipient of the "Sir P. C Ray Research Award" for the best PhD work. Prof. Ray's current research focuses on the applications of advanced nanostructured & polymeric materials. He is one of the most active and highly cited authors in the field of polymer nanocomposite materials, and he has recently been ranked by Thomson Reuters among the Top 1% most impactful and influential scientists and the Top 50 high-impact chemists. Prof. Ray is the author of 14 books, co-author of 13 edited books, and author and co-author of 507 articles in high-impact international journals and 79 book chapters on various aspects of polymer-based nanostructured materials and their applications. He also has 11 patents (registered or filed) and 10 new demonstrated technologies (commercialized) shared with colleagues, collaborators, and industrial partners. So far, his team has commercialized 19 different products. Over the last 15 years, he has trained 23 postdoctoral fellows and produced 41 PhD and 17 Master students under his direct supervision. He is one of the most active and highly cited (43.400 citations; h factor 92, GS) authors in nanostructured materials. So far, his team has commercialized 19 different products. His honors and awards include South Africa's most Prestigious 2016 National Science and Technology Award (NSTF); Prestigious 2014 CSIR-wide Leadership Award; Prestigious 2014 CSIR Human Capital Development Award; Prestigious 2013 Morand Lambla Awardee (top award in the field of polymer processing worldwide), International Polymer Processing Society, USA. He is also appointed as Extraordinary Professor, University of Pretoria, and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, University of Johannesburg. Dr. Ritima Banerjee did her Masters in Polymer Science & Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IITD). She returned to academia after 7 years in the polymer industry (GE Plastics and SABIC). She taught at Delhi Technological University for 2 years. Subsequently, she did her PhD at the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, IITD, where her work was on microcellular processing of thermoplastic elastomer-based blends and nanocomposites. She is a researcher at the Department of Chemical Sciences at the University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa. She is also associated with the Centre for Nanostructures and Advanced Materials, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria 0001, South Africa. Her research interests include microcellular processing and the structure-property-processing relationship of polymeric materials.