Artificial leaf inventor to discuss renewable energy at Kolkata meet

A star-studded gathering of speakers from India and abroad, including a Harvard scientist who engineered the artificial leaf, will participate in the fifth Symposium on Advanced Biological Inorganic Chemistry (SABIC-2017) here in January 2017 with a focus on renewable energy and carbon dioxide fixation, organisers said on Thursday.

Organised by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), SABIC 2017 will run from January 7 to 11 in Kolkata.

"An important area to be covered in SABIC 2017 is renewable energy and carbon dioxide fixation. Water contamination is a growing problem in a country like India where monitoring of industrial waste is not sufficient. Another area of discussion will be treating water contaminated with inorganics (arsenic, paints and leather industry). Leading researchers from different institutes in India will participate in these discussions," co-convener Abhishek Dey of IACS, told IANS.

Daniel G. Nocera, the inventor of 'the artificial leaf' and several other pioneers in the area of catalysis/photocatalysis for water splitting, using renewable sources, will be delivering lectures at the conference, said Dey.

J.M. Saveant (University of Paris), Wolfgang Lubitz (Director, Max-Plank Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion) and others will share their most recent results on fixation of carbon dioxide and nitrogen to useful chemicals.

"Along with the star studded international speakers, several Indian dignitaries like P.K. Mathur (director, IIT Indore), R.N. Mukherjee (director, IISER Kolkata), V. Chandrashekar (director, NISER Bhubaneshwar), R. Brakaspathy (chairman, SERB, Department of Science and Technology-India) and many others are scheduled to participate in the scientific sessions and ensuing discussions," Dey said.

Around 400 students from across India are scheduled to attend these talks and the organisers hope the conference excites and encourages them to pursue advanced studies in the thematic areas and join the global scientific workforce to solve contemporary problems of our society.

--IANS

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