New Faculty@IITD

Biswarup Chakraborty

Department Of Chemistry

Research Interests: Designing Artificial Photosynthetic Scheme using inorganic nanostructure as photo(electro)catalysts,. Renewable fuel production by means of water splitting and CO2 reduction is the key goal of his current research to avoid fossil fuel dependence and to develop green and sustainable energy based society.

Biswarup grew up in Jara, a village somewhere in Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal. During his science practical classes in the school days, he was enthralled with the colours of chemicals and the colour-changes that emerged during chemical reactions. This fascination drew him close to chemistry and he decided to pursue this as his main subject. He moved out of his native village for the first time , when he got an opportunity to do a B.Sc. in Chemistry at Ramakrishna Mission Residential College Narendrapur (University of Calcutta). The spiritual culture at the Ramakrishna mission and the enlightening talks of the teacher further blossomed his interest in Chemistry.

In 2007, he got admission in an Integrated M.Sc.-Ph.D. course conducted by the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS, Kolkata). The stimulating research environment and the multifaceted course-structure of the research institute motivated him to understand and widen his knowledge of Inorganic Chemistry. His Master's project on the Supramolecular Chemistry of transitional metal complexes was like an introduction for carrying out a broad-based research in chemistry.

While pursuing his Ph.D. at IACS , on Biomimetic Inorganic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Tapan Kanti Paine, he discovered many synthetic model complexes of dioxygenases enzymes. From Kolkata he shifted base to Israel and joined Prof. Ira A. Weinstock's group at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev as a postdoctoral research associate where he was exposed to an entirely new areas of chemistry which included polyoxometalate chemistry and photochemical water oxidation. In 2019, he moved to Technical University of Berlin, Germany and worked with Prof. Matthias Driess on electrochemical water splitting and electrocatalytic organic transformation for recycling the valuable industrial wastes.

He returned back to India and joined the Department of Chemistry, IIT Delhi in June 2020. His current interest includes designing of Artificial Photosynthetic Scheme using inorganic nanostructure as photo(electro)catalysts. Renewable fuel production by means of water splitting and CO2 reduction is the key goal of his current research to avoid fossil fuel dependence and to develop green and sustainable energy based society.