IICT scientist wins three national science awards

  Tarnaka: Dr S Sridhar, Senior Principal Scientist, Process Engineering and Technology Transfer division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), has been bestowed with three national awards. 
The awards include Talented Industrial Biotechnologist Award from the Society of Applied Biotechnology and Pharmacy (ABAP), in November 2018 at Aizawl (Mizoram),  NOCIL Award for Excellence in Design or Development of Process Plant and Equipment, Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE), at CHEMCON (Jalandhar) on December 27, and  CIPET National Award for New Applications of Polymers in various fields, given to Dr Sridhar and team by Vice-President  M Venkaiah Naidu, on January 24 at Chennai.

Recent innovations made by Dr Sridhar include design of a pilot plant installed at Nephroplus for generation of 500 lit/hr of medical grade water for more than 200 patients, indigenous nano filtration technology developed through surface modification of RO membranes by using proprietary reagents, for the production of packaged drinking water containing essential minerals for start-ups such as PH 7 Aqua Pvt. Ltd. and Aroma Energy Pvt. Ltd. based at Hyderabad as well as HPCL, Mumbai.

Dr. Sridhar improvised the design of a highly compact indigenous atmospheric water generator for coastal, hilly and border areas to generate healthy re-mineralised water, in another achievement. He designed mini-pilot plants of 100 to 300 lit/hr capacity and inexpensive ultrafine hollow fiber membranes for drinking water purification to lower the cost of water purification.
 
His ongoing research includes cascaded double stage nano filtration systems for processing of solvents, acids and alkalis to semi-conductor grade purity, besides drying and de-waxing of solvents. Dr Sridhar has also excelled in basic research by publishing 134 papers in high impact journals with a high h-index of 40. He holds 12 patents, has published two books and 37 book-chapters, besides having guided 300 dissertation students and six PhD scholars.