Department of Chemistry

Welcome to the Department of Chemistry (CHY) 

The Department of Chemistry at IIT DHARWAD was established along with the inception of the institute in 2016. The department currently has two regular faculty members and one guest faculty. In addition, several guest professors from other IITs have served the department from time to time in teaching and research, establishing laboratories etc. The department also has a regular junior technical superintendent to assist with various pedagogical activities.

The department currently offers a B. Tech level core course named “Chemistry for Engineers: Fundamental concepts and applications (CH101)” for all branches of the engineering students in every fall semester. This course encompasses several disciplines of chemistry with an industrial application-oriented approach. In addition, a “Chemistry Laboratory (CH111)” course has also been designed to assist the theory course which focuses on hands-on training of chemical principles of day to day life with various thought-provoking experiments. In every spring semester, the department also offers another core course namely “Environmental Studies (CH301)” for all branches of the engineering students. Currently, an elective course is also offered in collaboration with other departments namely “Sustainable energy and energy materials (CH302)”.

At the PhD level, the department offers various interdisciplinary courses (topics in chemistry, molecular spectroscopy, polymer and materials science etc.), courses in organic and biological chemistry (organic reaction mechanisms, bioorganic chemistry and chemical biology), inorganic chemistry (inorganic and organic photochemistry, coordination and organometallic chemistry) and physical chemistry (statistical thermodynamics, kinetics and computational chemistry). The department aims to design a master’s level research-based course in chemistry in the near future.

In terms of research, the department has an active PhD program with interdisciplinary research areas such as organic photochemistry, polymer and materials chemistry, bioorganic and medicinal chemistry, and chemical biology. Currently the PhD students enter the program either in teaching assistant (institute funded), fellowship (CSIR/UGC) and/or project (external funding agencies such as DST/CSIR/DBT) categories. The faculty members also have secured research and consultancy funding from various government and private agencies for carrying out fundamental and transformational research. In terms of research facilities, the department has several modern equipment (such as NMR, IR, UV-Vis and fluorescence spectrophotometer, chemical fume hoods, glove boxes and other essential instruments) for conducting cutting edge research across boundaries. In addition, several instruments are housed in the central instrumentation facility (such as AFM, SEM, XRD, TEM etc.) which could be used for various transdisciplinary research. Being in a new and vibrant institute, the department has active collaboration with various engineering and science departments within the institute as well as with several other institutes in India and abroad. The faculty members often publish in journals of national and international repute from time to time. The department holds regular student seminars, journal clubs and other guest seminars on current areas of chemistry and beyond and actively participates in several educational and research outreach activities of the institute. The department also takes part in collaborative activities with nearby educational institutes (such as KUD, UAS, KLE, SDM etc.) to serve the community in and around the Hubli-Dharwad region. Interested candidates could write to Dr. Rajeswara Rao M. (rajesh@iitdh.ac.in) and Dr. Nilkamal Mahanta (neel@iitdh.ac.in) for learning more about the department and IIT DHARWAD in general.