Speakers

Biography

Prof. Suresh C. Ameta obtained his master's Degree from the University of Udaipur and was awarded the Gold Medal in 1970. He secured First position in M. Phil-1978 at Vikram University, Ujjain (M. P.). He also obtained a Ph. D degree from this University in 1980. He has served as Professor & Head of the Department of Chemistry, North Gujarat University, Patan (1994) and M. L. Sukhadia University, Udaipur (2002-2005) & Head of the Department of Polymer Science (2005-2008). He also served as Dean of P.G. Studies for four years (2004-2008).  He has been Dean of the Faculty of Science, PAHER University, Udaipur, for six years (2011-2017). Presently, he is working as a Professor of Eminence (Distinguished Professor of Chemistry) at Pacific University, Udaipur.

Prof. Ameta has occupied the coveted position of President of the Indian Chemical Society, Kolkata (2000-2001) and is now a lifelong Advisor (2002-continue). He was awarded a number of prizes during his career like National prize twice for writing Chemistry books in Hindi (1976 & 1978), Scientist of the Year Award (2002), Prof. M. N. Desai Award (2004), Prof. G. V. Bakore Award (2007), Prof. W. U. Malik Award (2008), National Teacher Award (2011), and above all, Life Time Achievement Awards by Indian Chemical Society, Kolkata (2011), Indian Council of Chemists, Agra (2015), Association of Chemistry Teachers, Mumbai  (2018), North Gujarat University, Patan (2022). He has successfully guided 110 students for Ph. D.  Dr. Ameta has more than  450 research papers and 36 books to his credit. He has contributed Chapters in Books published by Trans-Tech, Switzerland: Nova Science, Taylor & Francis, and Apple Academic Press, USA. Apple Academic Press, USA, has published three books on Green Chemistry, Microwave Assisted Organic Synthesis, and Chemical Applications of Symmetry and Group Theory. Two more books on Solar Energy Conversion & Storage and Photocatalysis, An Emerging Technology, have been released by Taylor & Francis, USA, and a book on Waste Water Treatments by AOPs by Elsevier. He has completed 5 Major Research Projects by DST, UGC, CSIR, and Ministry of Energy, Govt. of India.  Prof. Ameta has delivered lectures and chaired sessions in National Conferences organized in almost every part of this country. He is also a reviewer of several International Journals. Prof. Ameta has more than 50 years of experience in teaching and research.

Indian Chemical Society, Kolkata published a Special issue of the Journal of Indian Chemical Society in December 2008 to felicitate him on his 60th birthday and has instituted an Award in his name as Prof. Suresh C. Ameta Award to be given to a senior chemist of repute from 2003 onwards. He has delivered Lectures at international conferences in Tokyo, Japan; Hangzhou & Kunming, China; Valencia, Spain; Boston, USA; and is invited to deliver lectures in Singapore, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Spain; and Rome, Italy, in 2024. Above all, he has pointed out some problems in the h-index and proposed a complimentary index, such as Ameta or A-index, to improve the h-index further. For this, he was granted a copyright for this improvement. Recently, his name has been published in the top 2% of scientists worldwide, along with his son, Dr. Rakshit, in the same report, which is a rare combination.

Abstract

The world is in a cancerous grip of global warming and energy crisis. The rapidly increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the last few decades has created this problem and a shortage of conventional fuels on the other. Photocatalysis has emerged as a promising technology to solve both these problems simultaneously. Reducing carbon dioxide to valuable synthetic fuels (alternate organic fuels) such as formic acid, formaldehyde, methanol, methane, etc., will provide a solution to the energy crisis and help check rapidly growing carbon dioxide levels. All traditional fuels on burning add to existing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, while these alternate fuels will not add any additional carbon dioxide molecules there. It can be considered a short-term loan of carbon dioxide, which will be reverted to the atmosphere using these non-conventional fuels. This may be done by photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide. Of course, photocatalytic materials cannot absorb much in the visible range and fast hole-pair recombination. Still, efforts are being made to increase the photocatalytic activity by modifying it through metal- or non-metal doping, sensitization, co-catalyst, composite formation, Z-scheme, S-scheme, etc. Time is not far off when this method will dominate in controlling global warming and the energy crisis. This all will be discussed in this presentation.