M.Sc. Students and Prof. A.K. Gupta of Chemistry Department, MRU at Indo-UK Scoping Workshop

A one day  Indo-UK Scoping Workshop  on  ‘Development of Rural Bio-refineries In India: From Waste to Wealth’  was organized by Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, University of York,  U.K., Green Chemistry Network Centre, University of Delhi and The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi in New Delhi.

Dr. A. K. Gupta, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Manav Rachna University delivered a talk on ‘Bio-Fuels from Non-Edible Oils and Ligno-Cellulosic Waste’ and also chaired a Technical session. Our M.Sc. students Ms. Kajol Rana and Ms. Aarushi Sharma shared their new ideas on the topic ‘Production of Biodiesel from Tea Waste‘ whereas Ms. Divya Chabbra, Ms. Shweta and Ms. Priyanka Tokas presented their poster on the topic of ‘Generating Electricity from Used Tea Leaves‘. Both the poster presentations were highly appreciated by all the judges and faculty members/ researchers.

The Workshop started with a welcome address by Prof. R. K. Sharma, Delhi University, who also highlighted the main objectives of the workshop i.e. to connect biotechnological and green chemical approaches that utilize agricultural and industrial waste to deliver high value chemicals, materials and bio-energy, which was followed by the keynote address by Dr. Avatar Mathura, Acting Director, Green Chemistry Centre Of Excellence, University of York, UK.  He discussed about various techniques for converting Bio-waste into bio-fuels. Following this, Dr. Alok Adhoya of TERI and Prof. R. K. Sharma gave their lecture on Bio-refinery and Reclamation. It was quite an enriching session for both faculty and students.

The next session was started by a talk by Dr. Banwari Lal, Sr. Director, TERI on ‘Microbial production of second generation 2,3-butanediol from renewable biomass: A sustainable process for production of green platform chemical. The next lecture was given by Dr. Sanjukta Subudhi, TERI on ‘Microbial production of Second Generation Hydrogen through Dark Fermentation Route from Renewable Biomass: A Sustainable Process for Clean Energy Production’. Many other oral talks and ideas were also discussed.

Dr. Indu T. Sidhwani from Gargi College explained the importance of green chemistry, its principles through various real life cases like the Bhopal Tragedy etc.. He  also explained some green chemistry experiments which are performed by students in Labs.

The Workshop was very fruitful and enriched students’ knowledge on utilization of waste for conversion into useful products and energy.