Interview With Kumar Vikrant
We got a chance to chat with Kumar Vikrant, a final year student of the Department of Chemical Engineering. His research profile has been a great motivation for many, here he is presenting some of the dos and donts’ for research.
Q — Can you tell us about how you pursued your research interests along with the college curriculum?
K.Vikrant- It has all been possible due to my sheer interest and enthusiasm for research. In the summers of second year I did my DIH project under the guidance of Prof.R.S. Singh (Department of Chemical Engineering). My interest into research originated from there. The craving of knowing the seemingly unknown is the driving force that keeps me motivated. Balance is the key. Managing all spheres of my life proves to be challenging at times but the support of my family keeps me together.
Q — What points do you suggest should be kept in mind while preparing a research document?
K. Vikrant- Presentation is the key. Many times your work might be novel but in order to attract more readers and prospective journals, you need to present your findings in an interactive manner. This cannot be taught perse but rather learnt by trial and good supervision. What I suggest is to see papers in high impact journals and try to understand their presentation. Also, beginners should discuss with their guides/supervisors to get more insights into the issue.
Q- How do you suggest one should proceed on their topic? For example on each topic, there are many research papers and going through them is difficult. What are the tips that you suggest for the same?
K. Vikrant — When a beginner takes up a research topic, he/she should at first read the full length review paper on the topic (if available). A review paper presents all the recent developments in that particular research area, all the related references and a ‘future scope’ section all in a condensed manner. Further, the student should study individual research papers to further understand the dynamics and concept and get ideas on how to design their experiments.
Most of the reputed journals (i.e. SCI (Science Citation Index) journals) belong to major publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), American Chemical Society (ACS) etc. Most of these don’t support open access. Fortunately, our institute has subscriptions for most of these publishers and you can easily get through via your institute ids. For some publishers for which we don’t have access, you can go to ResearchGate and directly request the author to supply you with the full text.
Q — Your area of research comprises of analysing the impact of various processes on environment and also to come up with better methods. So, can you throw some light on the work you have done?
K. Vikrant — My journey started from the DIH project, I worked under Prof. R.S.Singh in the area of biotechnology to develop new and advanced evaporative cooler model based biofilter capable of batch operation in confined spaces such as a paint spray booth to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In the summers of 3rd year, I worked at the Iabat Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea under Prof. Ki-Hyun Kim, on advanced functional materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) which are a type of porous coordination polymers. We wanted to develop new and advanced filters focused towards odorants (hydrogen sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, ammonia, etc.) for tech giants such as Samsung. My highest impact paper (published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, Impact factor: 8.867) is a result of this research. At present, I work under the supervision of Prof. R.S. Singh towards the treatment of waste water laden with textiles via advanced adsorbents and hybrid treatment systems. In the future, I would like to research on the utilization of nano material interfaces towards environmental applications.
Q — Your research review on Metal-Organic Framework to detect the pesticides in the agricultural products has fascinated us. Are there any plans to extend this to the Indian Agricultural Industry?
K.Vikrant — Thanks for the nice question. Pesticides play a pivotal role in agriculture because approximately one-third of the global agricultural production is dependent on such chemicals. However, accurate assessment of their pollution status in the ecosystem is necessary for proper management and control because of short-term health issues (e.g., eye and skin irritation, nausea, headache, and dizziness) and chronic diseases (e.g., cancer, asthma, diabetes, and neurological disorders) associated with pesticide use. The detection of pesticides has long been achieved using conventional methods such as gas chromatography (GC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). However, these are limited by a number of disadvantages. In the Indian context, around 7,000 cases of accidental exposure were reported in 2015. Also, about 2,000 tons of Class I pesticides were utilized in 2015–16 as reported by the National Crime Records Bureau. Hence, our aim was to develop highly miniaturized and swift pesticide sensors with great detection limits. In this regard, the role of novel, advanced functional materials such as metal−organic frameworks (MOFs) has drawn great interest as an alternative. This technology needs proper field trials to analyse their robustness and to optimize different parameters. I hope to see such highly advanced sensors in the hands of farmers or layman workers who can easily use it to detect dangerous pesticide levels and protect themselves.
We congratulate him for his success so far and wish him the best of luck for his future research.
