Department News

Professor Indu Shekhar Thakur, School of Environmental Sciences, Jawahar Nehru University has given a talk on carbon sequestration: Carbon dioxide to Biofuel generation on 10^th February, 2018 in A.V hall. He very aptly had taken a topic which is of our concern interms of energy requirement and pollution load.

To meet the CO₂ emission reduction targets, carbon dioxide capture and utilization (CCU) comes as an evolve technology. CCU concept is turning into a feedstock and technologies have been developed for transformation of CO₂ in to useful organic products. At industrial scale, utilization of CO₂ as raw material is not much significant as compare to its abundance. Mechanisms in nature have evolved for carbon concentration, fixation and utilization. Assimilation and subsequent conversion of CO₂ in to complex molecules are performed by the photosynthetic and chemolithotrophic organisms. In the last three decades, substantial research is carry out to discover chemical and biological conversion of CO₂ in various synthetic and biological materials, such as carboxylic acids, esters, lactones, polymer biodiesel, bio-plastics, bio-alcohols, exopolysaccharides. This review presents an over view of catalytic transformation of CO₂ in to biofuels and biomaterials by chemical and biological methods.

The lecture was attended by faculty and post graduate students of Biotechnology, Microbiology, Environmental science, Chemistry and Zoology. It was a relevant and informative talk where Prof.  Thakur vividly explained his research work with the young audience. All could very well connect to the talk and even pursue it as their future research arena.

To extend the research work more in a positive direction and give a new horizon to practical exposure a one day educational trip was organised to Keoladeo national park, Bharatpur by CUBE, Jaipur, Department of Biotechnology with Department of Zoology. Dr. Pradeep Bhatnagar, Dr. Sreemoyee Chatterjee and Dr. Lopamudra Guha accompanied the group of students on 20^th January, 2018. The trip started with the introduction about the national park .The sanctuary was named after a Keoladeo (Shiva) temple within its boundaries. This sanctuary was declared a national park on 10 March 1982. The park is full of wide diversity of flora and fauna and speaks about the beauty inhabitated by our country. The 29 km² (11 sq miles) reserve is locally known as Ghana, and is a mosaic of dry grasslands, woodlands, woodland swamps and wetlands. These diverse habitats are home to 366 bird species, 379 floral species, 50 species of fish, 13 species of snakes, 5 species of lizards, 7 amphibian species, 7 turtle species, and a variety of other invertebrates.  Every year thousands of migratory waterfowl visit the park for wintering and breeding. The flora includes famous meswak tere which is major ingredient of the ayurvedic toothpaste. The other diversity of flora include Capparis decidua, baboon, lemon grass which attracts Indian bird Treron phoenicoptera (yellow footed green pigeon). One third of the Keoladeo National Park habitat is wetland systems with varying types of microhabitats having trees, mounds, dykes and open water with or without submerged or emergent plants. The bird species include the adorable oriental magpie robbin, common teal, parakeet were observed where males bear moustaches and light red coloured ring on neck which make them different from female parakeet. The other include gadwall, shoveler, oriental ibis, sarus crane with its spectacular courtship dance , babblers , crested serpent eagle , spotted eagle , purple hyreon , whistling duck , bar headed geese, intermediate egret. Mammalian species include nilgai, chameleon, soft shelled turtle, and chital deer. Such a wide variety of diversity soothes eyes of one observing it. The world is big and we all want to have a look at it too before it gets dark and we got an opportunity to have a glimpse of that fascinating world with a big bag full of knowledge.

The Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Science jointly organized a Demonstration cum Training Workshop On “Recycling of Waste Paper and Handmade Papermaking” on 10^th August 2017 in Collaboration with the Kumarappa National Handmade Paper Institute (KNHPI), Sanganer, Jaipur. A group of 30 students along with three faculty members, Prof. Pradeep Bhatnagar, Dr. Payal Mehtani and Dr. Charu Jhamaria attended the workshop. The workshop gave an insight of the process of making handmade paper from waste and its biotechnological aspects. Students could also get hands on training to make customized paper from the processed pulp. The workshop proved to be useful for the students as they can also adopt handmade paper making industry as an entrepreneur.