Abstract:
The world is facing two major problems these days: Ever increasing pollution and scarcity of energy resources. Advanced Oxidation Processes are eco-friendly pathways and photocatalysis is one of these processes, which can provide a solution to both these issues. Hydrogen is advocated as a fuel of future and it can be produced photocatalytically from photosplitting of water. Global warming is another existing challenge, and the carbon dioxide has been predicted as the main culprit. Carbon dioxide can also be reduced photocatalytically to some value added fuels. The major limitation of photocatalyst in most of the cases is their less activity due to little or no absorption in visible range and recombination of electron- hole pairs. Efforts are being made to control both these limitations by increasing the photocatalytic activity by modifications of the semiconductor by metal or non-metal doping, sensitization, use of cocatalysts, composite formation, Z-scheme, etc. All this will be discussed along with other interesting applications of photocatalysis.
Biography:
Prof. Suresh C. Ameta obtained his masters degree from university of Udaipur and was awarded gold medal-1970. He secured First position in M. Phil-1978 in Vikram University, Ujjain (M. P.). He also obtained Ph. D degree from this University in 1980. He has served as Professor & Head, Department of Chemistry, North Gujarat University, Patan (1994) and M. L. Sukhadia University, Udaipur (2002-2005) & Head, Department of Polymer Science (2005-2008). He also served as Dean, P.G. Studies for a period of four years (2004-2008). He has served as Dean, Faculty of Science, PAHER University, Udaipur for six years (2011-2017). Presently, he is working as Professor of Eminence (Distinguished Professor of Chemistry) in Pacific University, Udaipur.
Prof. Ameta has occupied the coveted position of President, Indian Chemical Society, Kotkata (2000-2001) and is now lifelong Advisor (2002-continue). He was awarded a number of prizes during his career like National prize twice for writing Chemistry books in Hindi (1976 & 1978), Scientist of the Year Award (2002), Prof. M. N. Desai Award (2004), Prof. G. V. Bakore Award (2007), prof. W. U. Malik Award (2008), national Teacher Award (2011), and above all, Life Time Achievement Awards by Indian Chemical Society, Kolkata (2011), Indian Council of Chemists, Agra (2015), Association of Chemistry Teachers, Mumbai (2018), North Gujarat University, Patan (2022). He has successfully guided 110 students for Ph. D. Dr. Ameta has more than 450 research papers and 36 books to his credit. He has contributed Chapters in Books published by Trans-Tech, Switzerland: Nova Science, Taylor & Francis, and Apple Academic Press, USA. Three books on Green Chemistry, Microwave Assisted Organic Synthesis and Chemical Applications of Symmetry and Group Theory have been published by Apple Academic Press, USA. Two more books on Solar Energy Conversion & Storage and Photocatalysis; An Emerging Technology have been recently released by Taylor & Francis, USA and a book on Waste Water Treatments by AOPs by Elsevier. He has completed 5 Major Research Projects by DST, UGC, CSIR, and Ministry of Energy, Govt. of India. Prof. Ameta has delivered lectures and chaired sessions in National Conferences organized in almost every part of this country. He is also reviewer of number of international Journals. Prof. Ameta has an experience of more than 50 years of Teaching and Research.
Indian Chemical Society, Kolkata has published a Special issue of Journal of Indian Chemical Society in December 2008 to felicitate him on his 60th birthday and has instituted aa Award in his name as Prof. Suresh C. Ameta Award to be given to a senior chemist of repute from 2003 onwards. He has delivered Keynote Addresses in International Conferences at Tokyo, Japan in May 2022, Hangzhou, China in July 2022 and Kunming, China in 2023. Above all, he has pointed out some problems in h-index and proposed a complimentary index as Ameta or A-index for further improving h-index and for this, he received approval of copyright for this improvement.
