RESEARCH FRONT NO. 1751 ADVANCED OXIDATION PROCESSES AND TECHNIQUES
Professor Aniruddha B. Pandit
UGC, Research Scientist ‘C’, Professor with University
Institute of Chemical Technology (UICT), University of Mumbai
Professor Pandit earned his B. Tech (Chem) degree from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University in 1980 and obtained his Ph.D. (Tech) degree from the University Department of Chemical Technology (now UICT), University of Mumbai. From 1984 till 1990 he worked in the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom as Research Assistant and subsequently as Research Associate with Professor J. F. Davidson, in the area of bubble break-up and design of multiphase reactors, on projects sponsored by Imperial Chemical industries and Agricultural and Food Research Council. Professor Pandit developed many novel designs of gas-liquid contactors and also developed new impeller designs.
After returning to India in 1990, he joined UICT as UGC Research Scientist ‘B’ and was subsequently promoted to Scientist ‘C’ (Professor’s Grade) in 1996. He was instrumental in starting a major activity and programme in the area of Hydrodynamic Cavitation. Professor Pandit has been singularly responsible for proposing, promoting and applying the phenomena of Hydrodynamic Cavitation for intensification of physical and chemical processing applications. He has successfully exploited the cavitation phenomena for a variety of operations such as crystallization, emulsification, nano-particle synthesis and processes such as esterification, oxidation.
Professor Pandit has been internationally recognized for his contribution and his research group is eagerly sought after by international universities for collaborations. His work on microbial cell disruption for water disinfection is recognised by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as a most probable technique for Ballast Water Treatment from seven other techniques developed by scientists in Japan, Germany and USA. A unique creative approach of using fundamental knowledge, coupled with simple, elegant experiments has resulted in novel cavitational reactors.
Professor Pandit has authored over 200 publications, three books and over 10 chapters and has five patents to his name. He sits on the editorial board of several international scientific journals, and has guided 25 PhD students and 45 masters students to date. In addition to his research contribution, Professor Pandit has contributed to innovation in teaching, at graduate and undergraduate levels, and demonstration experiments which elaborate the physical principles of many chemical engineering operations. He is currently involved in the setting up of cavitational application centre to exploit the phenomena of cavitation for physical/ chemical/ biological transformations at UICT Mumbai.
Professor Pandit was elected to the fellowship of INSA in 2008. He is also a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Academy of Engineering and Maharashtra Academy of Sciences. Among the several accolades he received are the ISTE, Outstanding Research Award (1992), VASVIK award (1996), IIChE – Herdilia Award (2002), UAA Distinguished Alumnus Award (2008) and the UICT Best Teacher Award on seven occasions in the past 15 years.