The RENEW Institute - A Multidisciplinary Initiative
Thalappil Pradeep
Thalappil Pradeep is an Institute Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), Chennai, India whose interest focus is molecular and nanoscale materials. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Thalappil Pradeep is one of the most prominent researchers of India in chemistry and materials. He is a fellow of all the four major science and engineering academies of India and six in the world.
>> Pradeep research group.
He is the Deepak Parekh Institute Chair Professor and is also a Professor of Chemistry. He studied at the University of Calicut, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), UC Berkeley, and Purdue. He is an author of over 560 scientific papers in journals and is an inventor of over 100 issued patents. He is involved in the development of affordable technologies for drinking water purification and some of them have been commercialized. His pesticide removal technology has reached about 10 million people. His arsenic removal technology, approved for national implementation, is delivering arsenic free water to about 1.3 million people every day. He is the recipient of several awards including the National Award for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, India Nanotech Innovation Award, JC Bose National Fellowship and National Water Award, the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) prize in Chemistry, the Nikkei Asia Prize, Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water, VinFuture Prize and ENI award. He has authored popular science books in English and Malayalam and is a recipient of Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for knowledge literature. He has received the Lifetime Achievement Research Award of IITM and Distinguished Alumnus Award of IISc. As part of philanthropy, he supports a school in his village where 500 students are on rolls.
>> Learn more about Dr. Pradeep
"Affordable clean water using advanced materials"
Sustainable nanotechnology is important for providing contaminant-free water to humanity. Dr. Pradeep will present the discovery of affordable and sustainable nanomaterials to selectively scavenge arsenate and arsenite ions (and others) in water to bring their concentrations below the drinking water limits and its development into a technology. The solution, popularly called AMRIT (meaning elixir in Sanskrit), is now delivering 80 million litres of arsenic-, iron- and uranium-free water every day, conforming to international standards to 1.3 million people at the cost of 2.1 paise (US $0.00026) per litre, the lowest in the world. This technology has been approved for national implementation. Dr. Pradeep’s team has developed several other technologies for sensing contaminants and their removal. A glimpse into these activities and directions for future will be presented.
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
at the Buffalo Room - 10 Capen Hall, North Campus
Talk begins at 3:00 p.m. with reception following
Space is limited! RSVP here.