Research Group Publications

• Milan Kumar Bisai, Tamal Das, Kumar Vanka And Sakya S. Sen*, Easily accessible lithium compounds catalyzed mild and facile hydroboration and cyanosilylation of aldehydes and ketones, Chem. Commun., 54, 6843 - 6846 (2018).
  This work is part of the themed collection: 2018 Emerging Investigators
• Sanjukta Pahar, Suvendu Karak, Moumita Pait, K. Vipin Raj, Kumar Vanka And Sakya S. Sen*, Access to Silicon(II)- and Germanium(II)-Indium Compounds, Organometallics., 37, 1206 - 1213 (2018).
• Siba P. Midya, J. Rana, J. Pitchaimani, A. Nandakumar, V. Madhu* And E. Balaraman*, Ni-catalyzed ?-alkylation of unactivated amides and esters with alcohols via hydrogen auto-transfer strategy, ChemSusChem., , (2018).
• Dinesh Mullangi, Debanjan Chakraborty, Anu Pradeep, Vijay Koshti, C. P. Vinod, Soumendranath Panja, Sunil Nair And Ramanathan Vaidhyanathan*, Highly Stable COF?Supported Co/Co(OH)2 Nanoparticles Heterogeneous Catalyst for Reduction of Nitrile/Nitro Compounds under Mild Conditions, Small., , (2018), DOI:10.1002/smll.201801233.
• Pandian Manjunathan, Vijaykumar S Marakatti, Prakash Chandra, Atul B Kulal, Shubhangi B Umbarkar, Raman Ravishankar And Ganapati V Shanbhag, Mesoporous tin oxide: An efficient catalyst with versatile applications in acid and oxidation catalysis, Catalysis Today., 309, 61 - 76 (2018), DOI:org/10.1016/j.cattod.2017.10.009.
• Sakya S. Sen* And Herbert W. Roesky*, Silicon-fluorine chemistry: From preparation of SiF2 to C-F bond activation by silylenes and its heavier congeners, Chem. Commun., 54, 5046 - 5057 (2018).
  Invited Feature Article
• V. S. V. S. N. Swamy, Gargi Kundu And and Sakya S. Sen*, Facile activation of Si-H bond by an electrophilic carbene, J. Indian. Chem. Soc., , (2018), DOI:Just Accepted.
  Invited Contribution
• A.C. SunilSekhar, A.Zaki, S.Troncea, S.Casale, C.P.Vinod, J.P.Dacquin* And P.Granger, Enhanced selectivity of 3-D ordered macroporous Pt/Al2O3 catalysts in nitrites removal from water, Applied Catalysis A: General., , (2018), DOI:10.1016/j.apcata.2018.07.014.
• Rahul Aher, Ajinkya Bhorde, Priyanka Sharma, Shruthi Nair, Haribhau Borate, Subhash Pandharkar, Sachin Rondiya, Minakshi Chaudhary, Chinnakonda Gopinath, Sachin Suryawanshi, Mahendra More And Sandesh Jadkar, Hydrothermal synthesis of rGO–PbBi2Se4 composite and investigation of its structural, chemical and field emission properties, Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics., 29, 40494 - 40503 (2018).
• Manoj K. Sahoo, K. Saravanakumar, G. Jaiswal And E. Balaraman*, Photocatalysis Enabling Acceptorless Dehydrogenation of Diaryl hydrazines at Room Temperature, ACS Catal., , (2018), DOI:10.1021/acscatal.8b01579.
• Sandip K.Singh And Paresh L. Dhepe, Novel Synthesis of Immobilized Brønsted- Acidic Ionic Liquid: Application in Lignin Depolymerization, Chemistryselect-Sustainable Chemistry., 3, 5461 - 5470 (2018), DOI:DOI: 10.1002/slct.201703050.
• Sandip Kumar Singh And Paresh L. Dhepe, Experimental evidences for the existence of varying moieties and functional groups in assorted crop waste derived organosolv lignins, Industrial Crops and Products (2018)., , (2018).
• S. P. Midya, J. Pitchaimani, V. G. Landge, V. Madhu* And E. Balaraman*, Direct Access to N-Alkylated Amines and Imines via Acceptorless Dehydrogenative Coupling Catalyzed by Cobalt(II)-NNN Pincer Complex, Catal. Sci. Technol., , (2018), DOI:C8CY00859K.
• A C Sunil Sekhar, Anumol Erumpukuthickal Ashokkumar, C T Cygnet, S Vidhya Lakshmi, Francis Leonard Deepak And C P Vinod*, Mesoporous shell@macroporous core aluminosilicates as sustainable nanocatalysts for direct N-alkylation of Amines, ChemNanoMat., (accepted as VIP article), (2018), DOI:10.1002/cnma.201800081.
  Appeared as highlight in Chemistry Views http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/11014918/Pores_for_Thought.html
• Ravindra P Gote, Dipa Mandal, Ketan Patel, Krishnaroop Chaudhuri, CP Vinod, Ashish K Lele And Samir H Chikkali*, Judicious Reduction of Supported Ti Catalyst Enables Access to Disentangled Ultrahigh Molecular Weight Polyethylene, Macromolecules., , (2018), DOI:(just accepted).
• P. Karthik, E. Balaraman* And B. Neppolian*, Efficient solar light-driven H2 production: post-synthetic encapsulation of a Cu2O co-catalyst in a metal–organic framework (MOF) for boosting the effective charge carrier separation, Catal. Sci. Technol., , (2018), DOI:10.1039/c8cy00604k.
• V. G. Landge, A. Parveen, A. Nandakumar And E. Balaraman*, Pd(II)-Catalyzed gamma-C(sp3)-H Alkynylation of Amides: A selective functionalization of R chain of amides R1C(O)NHR, Chem. Commun., , (2018), DOI:10.1039/C8CC03445A.
• Laguduva K. Preethi, Tom Mathews. Lukasz Walczak And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath, Marginally Hydrogenated Triphasic Titania Nanotubes for Effective Visible-Light Photocatalytic Hydrogen Generation, Energy Technology., 6, 280 - 288 (2018).
• Anand S. Burange, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath, Rakesh Shukla And Avesh K. Tyagi, Role of palladium crystallite size on CO oxidation over CeZrO4-? supported Pd catalysts, Molecular Catalysis., 455, 1 - 5 (2018).
• A. Mondal, M. Subaramanian, A. Nandakumar And E. Balaraman*, Manganese-Catalyzed Direct Conversion of Ester to Amide with Liberation of H2, Org. Lett., , (2018).
  Just Accepted
• S. P. Midya, V. G. Landge, M. K. Sahoo, J. Rana And E. Balaraman*, Cobalt-catalyzed acceptorless dehydrogenative coupling of aminoalcohols with alcohols: direct access to pyrrole, pyridine and pyrazine derivatives, Chem. Commun., 54, 90 - 93 (2018), DOI:10.1039/C7CC07427A.
• P. Karthik, R. Vinoth, P. Zhang, W. Choi, E. Balaraman* And B. Neppolian*, pi–pi Interaction between metal–organic framework and reduced graphene oxide for visible-light photocatalytic H2 production, ACS Appl. Energy Mater., , (2018), DOI:10.1021/acsaem.7b00245.
• V. G. Landge, J. Pitchaimani, S. P. Midya, M. Subaramanian, V. Madhu* And E. Balaraman*, Phosphine-free cobalt pincer complex catalyzed Z-selective semihydrogenation of unbiased alkynes, Catal. Sci. Technol., 8, 428 - 433 (2018), DOI:10.1039/C7CY01994G.
• K. J. Betsy, Chandrani Nayak, Anish Lazar, Athira Krishnan, D. Bhattacharyya, S. N. Jha And C. P. Vinod*, Selective oxidation of cyclohexane to cyclohexanone using chromium oxide supported mesoporous MCM-41 nanospheres: Probing the nature of catalytically active chromium sites, ChemCatChem (accepted)., , (2018).
• Swechchha Pandey, K Vipin Raj, Dinesh R Shinde, Kumar Vanka, Varchaswal Kashyap, Sreekumar Kurungot, C P Vinod And Samir H Chikkali*, Iron Catalyzed Hydroformylation of Alkenes under Mild Conditions: Evidence of an Fe (II) Catalyzed Process, Journal of the American Chemical Society., , (2018), DOI:10.1021/jacs.8b01286.
• K. J. Betsy, Anish Lazar And C. P. Vinod*, Highly selective aqueous phase hydrogenation of phenols over nanostructured RuO 2 on MCM-41 catalysts, Nano-Structures & Nano-Objects., 13, 36 - 43 (2018), DOI:(Invited article, just accepted).
• Anish Lazar, K J Betsy, C. P. Vinod And A. P. Singh, Ru(II)-functionalized SBA-15 as highly chemoselective, acid free and sustainable heterogeneous catalyst for acetalization of aldehydes and ketones, Catalysis Communications., 104, 62 - 66 (2018), DOI:doi.org/10.1016/j.catcom.2017.10.016.
• C P Vinod*, A B Vysakh And S Sreedhala, Model Nanoparticles in Catalysis, book chapter in "Metal Nanoparticles and Clusters Advances in Synthesis, Properties and Applications" Springer (2017)., , 165 - 199 (2018), DOI:doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68053-8_5.
• Manisha G. Dohade And Paresh L. Dhepe, One pot conversion of furfural to 2-methylfuran in the presence of PtCo bimetallic catalyst, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy., Volume 20, 703 - 713 (2018), DOI:10.1007/s10098-017-1408-z.
• Chamundi P. Jijil, Indrajit M. Patil, Bhalchandra Kakade And and R. Nandini Devi, Cobalt-Doped Ba2In2O5 Brownmillerites: An Efficient Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Reduction in Alkaline Medium, ACS Omega., 3, 1710 - 1717 (2018), DOI:10.1021/acsomega.7b01655.
  A series of compounds with cobalt doping in the indium site of Ba2In2O5 brownmillerites exhibited excellent oxygen reduction activity under alkaline conditions. Doping (25%) retains the brownmillerite structure with disorder in the O3 site in the two-dimensional alternate layer along the ab plane. Further substitution of cobalt in the indium site leads to the loss of a brownmillerite structure, and the compound attains a perovskite structure. Cobalt-doped samples exhibited far better oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity when compared to the parent Ba2In2O5 brownmillerite. Among the series of compounds, BaIn0.25Co0.75O3?? with the highest Co doping and oxygen vacancies randomly distributed in the lattice exhibited the best ORR activity. BaIn0.25Co0.75O3?? showed a 40 mV positive shift in the onset potential with better limiting current density and a nearly four-electron-transfer reduction pathway when compared to the parent Ba2In2O5 brownmillerite.
• Manoj kumar Ghosalya, Ruchi Jain, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy And Chinnakonda S Gopinath*, Silicon Oxidation by NAPPES: From Dangling bonds to Oxygen Islands to 2D SiOx Layer to the Onset of Bulk SiO2 Formation, Journal of Physical Chemistry C., Just Accepted, (2018).
• Perumal Devaraji And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath, "Pt - g-C3N4 - (Au/TiO2) : Electronically integrated nanocomposite for solar hydrogen generation", International Journal of Hydrogen Energy., 43, 601 - 613 (2018).
• Subhasis Das, Gourab Bhattacharjee, Biswarup Satpati, Mukesh Kumar, Sasanka Deka, Manoj Kumar Ghosalya And Chinnakonda S. Gopinathd Tanushree Bala*, Deposition of Au nanoparticles inside porous CeO2 nanocubes using Langmuir–Blodgett technique, New Journal of chemistry., 42, 1379 - 1386 (2018).
• Kshirodra Kumar Patra and Chinnakonda S. Gopinath, Harnessing Visible Light and Limited Near IR Photons Through Plasmon Effect of Gold Nanorod with AgTiO2, Journal of Physical Chemistry C., 122, 1206 - 1214 (2018).
• Sandeep Yadav, Ruchi Dixit, Kumar Vanka And Sakya S. Sen*, Beyond Hydrofunctionalization: A Well-Defined Calcium Compound Catalyzed Mild and Efficient Carbonyl Cyanosilylation, Chem. Eur. J., 24, 1269 - 1273 (2018).
• V. S. V. S. N. Swamy, Nasrina Parvin, K. Vipin Raj, Kumar Vanka* And Sakya S. Sen*, C(sp3)–F, C(sp2)–F and C(sp3)–H bond activation at silicon(II) center, Chem. Commun., 53, 9850 - 9853 (2017).
• Sandeep Yadav, Ekta Sangtani, Diksha Dhawan, Rajesh G. Gonnade, Debashree Ghosh* And Sakya S. Sen*, Unprecedented solvent induced inter-conversion between monomeric and dimeric silylene-zinc iodide adducts, Dalton Transactions., 46, 11418 - 11424 (2017).
• V. S. V. S. N. Swamy, Milan Kumar Bisai, Tamal Das And Sakya S. Sen*, Metal free mild and selective aldehyde cyanosilylation by a neutral penta-coordinate silicon compound, Chem. Commun., 53, 6910 - 6913 (2017).
• Reshma S Kokane, Vaibhav R Acham, Atul B Kulal, Erhard Kemnitz, Mohan K Dongare And Shubhangi B Umbarkar, Palladium Supported on Fluorinated Magnesium Hydroxide: An Efficient Catalyst for Hydrogenation under Ambient Conditions, ChemistrySelect., 2, 10618 - 10627 (2017), DOI:10.1002/slct.201702217.
• Sonali B Khomane, Dhananjay S Doke, MK Dongare, SB Halligudi And SB Umbarkar, Efficient oxidation of ethyl benzene using in situ generated molybdenum acetylide oxo-peroxo complex as recyclable catalyst, Applied Catalysis A: General., 531, 45 - 51 (2017), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apcata.2016.12.003.
• Sourik Mondal, Thattarathody Rajesh, Basab Bijayi Dhar, Markus Snellman, Junjie Li And Leonard Deepak Francis and R. Nandini Devi , Understanding alloy structure and composition in sinter-resistant AgPd@SiO2 encapsulated catalysts and their effect on catalytic properties, New J. Chem., 41, 14652 - 14658 (2017), DOI:10.1039/C7NJ03652C.
  Extent of alloying and alloy composition, crucial in determining the activity and selectivity of bimetallic catalysts, are studied in porous silica encapsulated AgPd catalysts using XRD, HRTEM and HAADF-STEM. Water dispersible ligand protected Pd ultra small clusters and Ag nanoparticles of three different sizes are used as precursors. High reactivity of Pd ultra small clusters enhances alloying of even big Ag nanoparticles to an extent. Encapsulation seems to have minimised the sintering of the resultant nanoparticles. Earlier suggestions of role of d-band positions with respect to adsorption energies holds good for AgPd system also and alloying enhances the activity. Alloy of composition Ag50Pd50 is found to be the most active with rate of the reaction enhanced two fold in this system compared to other compositions. Other factors like particle size and sinter-resistance also play important roles in enhancing the activity of these catalysts.
• Prakriti Dhanraj, Anupam Samanta And R Nandini Devi, Ultra small nanoclusters to nanoparticles: Fine tuning of particle size in water dispersible cation functionalized thiolate protected Pd system, Materials Today: Proceedings., 4, 9440 - 9444 (2017), DOI:10.1016/j.matpr.2017.06.200.
• Manoj kumar Ghosalya, Ruchi Jain, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy, Kank Roy And Chinnakonda S Gopinath*, Subtle Interaction between Ag and O2: A Near Ambient Pressure UV Photoelectron Spectroscopy (NAP-UPS) Investigations, Journal of Chemical Sciences., Just Accepted, (2017).
• G. Jaiswal, V. Landge, D. Jagadeesan* And E. Balaraman*, Iron-based nanocatalyst for the acceptorless dehydrogenation reactions, Nature Commun., 8, 2147 - 2160 (2017), DOI:10.1038/s41467-017-01603-3.
• M. K. Sahoo, G. Jaiswal, J. Rana And E. Balaraman*, Organo-photoredox catalyzed oxidative dehydrogenation of N-heterocycles, Chem. Eur. J., 23, 14167 - 14172 (2017), DOI:10.1002/chem.201703642.
• S Das, A Bordoloi, MK Ghosalya, CS Gopinath And T Bala, Facile synthesis of Al2O3-Pt nanocomposite and its catalytic activity, Materials Research Express., 4, 115002 (2017).
• LK Preethi, Rajini P Antony, Tom Mathews, Lukasz Walczak And Chinnakonda S Gopinath, A Study on Doped Heterojunctions in TiO 2 Nanotubes: An Efficient Photocatalyst for Solar Water Splitting, Nature Scientific Reports., 7, 14314 (2017).
• Perumal Devaraji, Maitri Mapa, Hasna M. Abdul Hakkeem, Vediappan Sudhakar, Kothandam Krishnamoorthy And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, ZnO-ZnS Heterojunctions: A Potential Candidate for Optoelectronics Applications and Mineralization of Endocrine Disruptors in Direct Sunlight, ACS Omega., 2, 6768 - 6781 (2017).
• Kasala Prabhakar Reddy, Ruchi Jain, Manoj Kumar Ghosalya And and Chinnakonda S. Gopinath, Metallic Cobalt to Spinel Co3O4 – Electronic Structure Evolution by Near-Ambient Pressure Photoelectron Spectroscopy, J. Physical Chemistry C., 121, 21472 - 21481 (2017).
• Vysakh A B, Ruchi Jain, Gopinath S Chinnakonda And Vinod Prabhakaran, Diverse reactivity trends of Ni surface in Au@Ni core-shell nanoparticle probed by Near Ambient Pressure (NAP) XPS, Catalysis Science & Technology., 7, 4489 - 4498 (2017).
• Ruchi Jain, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy, Manoj Kumar Ghosalya And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath, Water Mediated Deactivation of Co3O4 Naonrods Catalyst for CO Oxidation and Resumption of Activity at and Above 373 K: Electronic Structural Aspects by NAPPES, Journal of Physical Chemistry C., 121, 20296 - 20305 (2017).
• Kshirodra Patra, Bela Bhuskute And Chinnakonda Gopinath*, Possibly scalable solar hydrogen generation with quasi-artificial leaf approach, Nature Scientific Reports., 7, 6515 (2017).
• S Chakrabartty, CS Gopinath And CR Raj, Polymer-based hybrid catalyst of low Pt content for electrochemical hydrogen evolution, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy., 42, 22821 (2017).
• Meenakshi Chauhan, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath And and Sasanka Deka, Copper Cobalt Sulphide Nanosheets Realizing Promising Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution Reaction, ACS Catalysis., 7, 5871 - 5879 (2017).
• Babasaheb M. Matsagar, ........... , Paresh L. Dhepe And Kevin C-W. Wu, Direct Production of Furfural in One-pot Fashion from Raw Biomass Using Brønsted Acidic Ionic Liquids, Scientific Reports., , (2017), DOI:DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-13946-4.
  The conversion of raw biomass into C5-sugars and furfural was demonstrated with the one-pot method using Brønsted acidic ionic liquids (BAILs) without any mineral acids or metal halides. Various BAILs were synthesized and characterized using NMR, FT-IR, TGA, and CHNS microanalysis and were used as the catalyst for raw biomass conversion. The remarkably high yield (i.e. 88%) of C5 sugars from bagasse can be obtained using 1-methyl-3(3-sulfopropyl)-imidazolium hydrogen sulfate ([C3SO3HMIM][HSO4]) BAIL catalyst in a water medium. Similarly, the [C3SO3HMIM][HSO4] BAIL also converts the bagasse into furfural with very high yield (73%) in one-pot method using a water/toluene biphasic solvent system.
• Sandip K. Singh, Subhrashis Banerjee, Kumar Vanka And Paresh L. Dhepe, Understanding interactions between lignin and ionic Liquids with experimental and theoretical studies during catalytic depolymerization, Catalysis Today., , (2017).
  Compared to H2SO4, Brønsted acidic ionic liquid (BAIL, [C3SO3HMIM][HSO4]) catalyzed depolymerization of lignin yielded higher concentration of low molecular weight products under mild conditions (120 oC) as proven by GC and GC-MS. To comprehend this disparity in catalytic activity among H2SO4 and BAIL (at similar H+ concentration), experimental techniques [1D(1H) NMR, 2D(15N/1H HMBC) NMR and RAMAN] have been employed. Based on these studies, it has been proven that the transfer of electron density from substrate to the electron deficient imidazolium ring via formation of hydrogen bond between –OH/OCH3 (substrate) and -N1C2H2N3- (cation) is possible, while the anion plays an important role. Further, density functional theory (DFT) calculations also corroborated this fact by showing a change in the bond angle and decrease in bond length (C2-H2 in imidazole), due to the presence of weak and strong hydrogen bonding between the substrate and IL.
• Babasaheb M. Matsagar And Paresh L. Dhepe, Effects of cations, anions and H+ concentration of acidic ionic liquids in the valorization of polysaccharides into furfural, New Journal of Chemistry., 41, 6137 - 6144 (2017), DOI:10.1039/C7NJ00342K.
  Valorization of hemicellulose to valuable chemicals such as C5 sugars and furfural in the one-pot fashion is crucial. In this work, acidic ionic liquids in presence of water showed high yields of C5 sugars (>80%) with >99% conversion of hemicelluloses at 160 °C. With water+toluene biphasic solvent system, within 4 h, 85% furfural yield was obtained directly from hemicellulose in a one-pot fashion using the catalytic amount of 1-methyl-3-(3-sulfopropyl)-imidazolium hydrogen sulfate. It is seen that BAILs perform better than solid acid [Faujasite and Mordenite zeolites; ion exchange resin, Amberlyst-15] and mineral catalysts [HCl and H2SO4]. The higher activity of BAILs compared to solid acids and mineral acid was correlated to Hammett acidity function (Ho) and ion-dipole type of interaction. The catalysts were characterized using NMR (1H and 13C), elemental analysis and TGA to confirm that those are stable under reaction conditions and thus were recyclable.
• Sandip K. Singh And Paresh L. Dhepe, Effect of structural properties of organosolv lignins isolated from different rice husks on their liquefaction using acidic ionic liquids, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy., , (2017).
  Lignin is the only naturally available sustainable resource of aromatic compound on the Earth. Depending on the properties of lignin and the reaction conditions employed for the liquefaction, it is observed that the product distribution alters. Since, ionic liquids (ILs) are considered as green and have tuneable properties, in the current work, imidazolium based acidic ILs were employed to liquefy organosolv lignins derived from different varieties of rice husks. When liquefaction was carried out at 120 oC for 1 h 36% yield for EtOAc and DEE soluble products with high mass balance (97±3%) was observed. The detailed characterizations of lignins and organic solvent soluble products were done by variety of techniques (GC-MS, FT-IR, UV-Vis, 2D (HSQC) NMR) and based on this, the correlation between activity and properties of catalyst and lignin were established.
• Manisha Dohade And Paresh L. Dhepe, One pot conversion of furfural to 2-methylfuran in presence of PtCo bimetallic catalyst, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy., , 1 - 11 (2017), DOI:10.1007/s10098-017-1408-z.
  Biomass-derived furfural (FAL) is the platform chemical for synthesis of various value-added chemicals and fuels. One of the FAL-derived chemicals, i.e., 2-methylfuran (2-MF), is the potential biofuel due to its attractive chemical and physical properties. Various methods are reported for conversion of FAL to 2-MF which are operated at high temperature and high H2 pressure. In present work, one pot catalytic method was developed in batch mode process for conversion of FAL to 2-MF. Reactions are carried out in the presence of PtCo/C bimetallic catalyst under 0.5–1 MPa H2 pressure. Monometallic and bimetallic catalysts with different Pt and Co loading were prepared by wet impregnation method, and catalysts were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, BET surface area, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and inductive coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy techniques. 59% 2-MF yield was achieved at 180 °C and lower (0.5 MPa) H2 pressure
• M. K. Sahoo, S. P. Midya, V. G. Landge And E. Balaraman* , A unified strategy for silver-, base-, and oxidant free direct arylation of C–H bonds, Green Chem., 19, 2111 - 2117 (2017), DOI:10.1039/c6gc03438a.
• S. P. Midya, J. Rana, T. Abraham, B. Aswin And E. Balaraman*, Metal-free radical trifluoromethylation of beta-nitroalkenes through visible-light photoredox catalysis, Chem. Commun., 53, 6760 - 6763 (2017), DOI:10.1039/C7CC02589K.
• S. P. Midya, A. Mondal, A. Begum And E. Balaraman*, A simple CoCl2 catalyzed N-alkylation of amines with alcohols, Synthesis., 49, 3957 - 3961 (2017), DOI:10.1055/s-0036-1589064.
  * Dedicated to Professor David Milstein on the occasion of his 70th birthday * Invited article for a special topic on ‘Cobalt in organic synthesis’
• E. Balaraman*, A. Nandakumar*, G. Jaiswal And M. K. Sahoo, Iron-catalyzed dehydrogenation reactions and its applications in sustainable energy and catalysis (Review Article), Catal. Sci. Technol., 7, 3177 - 3195 (2017), DOI:10.1039/C7CY00879A.
  * Cover page article * Dedicated to Professor David Milstein on the occasion of his 70th birthday
• M. K. Sahoo, J. Rana, M. Subaramanian And E. Balaraman*, Room-temperature direct arylation of anilides under external oxidant-free conditions using CO2 derived dimethyl carbonate (DMC) as 'green' solvent, ChemistrySelect., 2, 7565 - 7569 (2017), DOI:10.1002/slct.201701108.
• M. Subaramanian, A. Bera, B. L. V. Prasad* And E. Balaraman*, Nickel-catalyzed direct synthesis of dialkoxymethane ethers, J. Chem. Sci., 129, 1153 - 1159 (2017), DOI:10.1007/s12039-017-1339-6.
  Dedicated to Prof. K. C. Kumara Swamy on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
• V. G. Landge, J. Rana, M. Subaramanian And E. Balaraman*, Nickel-catalyzed N-vinylation of heteroaromatic amines via C-H bond activation, Org. Biomol. Chem., 15, 6896 - 6900 (2017), DOI:10.1039/C7OB01791J.
• A B Vysakh, Ruchi Jain, C S Gopinath And C. P. Vinod*, Diverse reactivity trends of Ni surface in Au@Ni core-shell nanoparticle probed by Near Ambient Pressure (NAP) XPS, Catalysis Science & Technology., (just accepted), (2017), DOI:10.1039/C7CY01070B.
• Yogita Soni, E. A. Anumol, Chandrani Nayak, Leonard Deepak Francis And C. P. Vinod, "A Convenient Route for Au@Ti-SiO2 Nanocatalyst Synthesis and its Application for Room Temperature CO Oxidation", The Journal of Physical Chemistry C., 121(9), 4946 - 4957 (2017), DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b10202.
• A Lazar, CP Vinod And AP Singh, Exploration of amination reactions on highly extendable active sites of Pd (II)-3-allylsalicylaldiminophenol (ASIP) complex over thiofunctionalized SBA-15, Microporous and Mesoporous Materials., 242, 173 - 181 (2017), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micromeso.2017.01.026.
• A Lazar, S Silpa, CP Vinod And AP Singh, A heterogeneous route for transfer hydrogenation reactions of ketones using Ru (II) Cymene complex over modified benzene-organosilica (PMO B), Molecular Catalysis., 440, 66 - 74 (2017), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mcat.2017.07.018.
• Ruchi Jain, Edwin Gnanakumar And Chinnakonda S Gopinath, Mechanistic Aspects of Wet and Dry CO Oxidation on Co3O4 Nanorod Surfaces : A NAP-UPS study, ACS Omega., 2, 828 - 834 (2017).
• L.K. Preethi, Tom Mathewsa, Mangla Nand, S.N. Jha, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath And S. Dash, Band alignment and charge transfer pathway in three phase anatase-rutile-brookite TiO2 nanotubes: An efficient photocatalyst for water splitting, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental., 218, 9 - 19 (2017).
• Debasmita Sardar, Jayeta Maity, Manoj Kumar Ghosalya, Chinnakonda S Gopinath And Tanushree Bala, Facile synthesis of ZnO–Ag nanocomposite and its photocatalytic activity, Materials Research Express., , (2017), DOI:10.1088/2053-1591/aa6df1.
• S. L. Deshmukh, P. C. Pingale, G. T. Chavan, S. T. Pawar, V. M. Prakshale, S. S. Kamble, S. R. Jadkar, N. B. Chaure, C. S. Gopinath, N. N. Maldar And L. P. Deshmukh, Compositional dependence of electrical conduction in solution grown Zn1?xCrxSe thin films: a correlation, Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics., 28, 5070 - 5074 (2017).
• Anjani Dubey, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, Ambient CO oxidation on in-situ generated Co3O4 spinel surfaces with random morphology, ChemistrySelect., 2, 533 - 536 (2017).
• Minu Mohan, Vikas Nandal, Sanish Paramadam, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy, Sekar Ramkumar, Sumanshu Agarwal, Chinnakonda S Gopinath, Pradeep R Nair And Manoj AG Namboothiry, Efficient Organic Photovoltaics with Improved Charge Extraction and High Short-Circuit Current, J. Physical Chemistry C., 121, 5523 - 5530 (2017).
• Debasmita Sardara, Manideepa Senguptab, Ankur Bardoluib, Md. A. Ahmedc, S.K. Neogic, Sudipta Bandyopadhyayc, Ruchi Jain, Chinnakonda S. Gopinathd And Tanushree Balaa*, Multiple functionalities of Ni nanoparticles embedded in carboxymethyl guar gum polymer: Catalytic activity and superparamagnetism, Applied Surface Science., 405, 231 - 239 (2017).
• P. Karthik, R. Vinoth, P. Selvam, E. Balaraman*, M. Navaneethan, Y. Hayakawa And B. Neppolian*, A visible-light active catechol–metal oxide carbonaceous polymeric material for enhanced photocatalytic activity, J. Mat. Chem. A., 5, 384 - 396 (2017), DOI:10.1039/C6TA07685H.
• M. Bhadra, H. S. Sasmal, A. Basu, S. P. Midya, S. Kandambeth, P. Pachfule, E. Balaraman* And R. Banerjee*, Predesigned metal anchored building block for in situ generation of Pd nanoparticles in microporous covalent organic framework: application in heterogeneous tandem catalysis, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces., 9, 13785 - 13792 (2017), DOI:10.1021/acsami.7b02355.
• Richa Chaudhary And Paresh L. Dhepe, Solid base catalyzed depolymerization of lignin into low molecular weight products, Green Chemistry., 19, 778 - 788 (2017), DOI:10.1039/C6GC02701F.
  For biorefinery concept to become commercially viable, it is essential to value-add lignin which is the only naturally available aromatic polymer. A one-pot depolymerization of lignin into reactive substituted phenolic compounds (platform chemicals and octane enhancers) with low molecular weightis of paramount interest and for that development of environmentally benign method is necessary. Herein we report, depolymerization of high molecular weight lignin (60,000 Da) over various recyclable solid base catalysts at 250 oC in 1 h. Under this conditions, most of the zeolitic catalysts (NaX, NaY, NaP) showed very high yields of low molecular weight products than other catalysts (MgO, CaO, HT, HAP). But particularly, over NaX maximum yield (51%) of low molecular weight products was achieved. Identification and quantification of products was done by GC, GC-MS, HPLC, LC-MS, CHNS, NMR and FT-IR techniques. The revelation of retention of most of the functional groups on products present in lignin is done by FT-IR studies. It is observed that efficiencies of catalysts were dependent on pH, cation, type and concentration of basic sites etc. A unique study on products adsorption capacities on solids was done and it is recognized that as strength of basic sites increases adsorption enhances.
• Manisha Dohade And Paresh L. Dhepe, Efficient hydrogenation of concentrated aqueous furfural solutions in to furfuryl alcohol under ambient conditions in presence of PtCo bimetallic catalysts, Green Chemistry., 19, 1144 - 1154 (2017), DOI:10.1039/C6GC03143A.
  One of the biomass derived significant chemical furfural (FAL) can be hydrogenated to yield industrially important platform chemical, furfuryl alcohol (FOL). Although heterogeneous catalysts based methods are known to yield FOL from dilute solutions of FAL, those mainly operate at higher temperatures and/or high pressures of hydrogen and in presence of organic solvents. In this work, we employ bimetallic PtCo/C catalysts with varying metal concentrations to achieve maximum possible FOL yield (100%) at 35 oC under 0.1 MPa H2 in water. With concentrated FAL (40 wt%) at 50 oC and under 1 MPa H2 pressure, 86% yield for FOL was observed. Moreover, efficient recycling of catalyst in at least 4 runs with marginal loss in activity due to handling error and isolation of FOL in pure form confirmed by NMR and HPLC is attractive. The characterization of catalysts with several physico-chemical techniques (XRD, TEM, XPS, ICP,TPR) reveal the presence of electron rich Pt and ionic Co species in proximity with each other and those work synergistically to facilitate accomplishment of maximum possible yield of FOL under ambient conditions and in water medium.
• Sandeep Yadav, Sanjukta Pahar And Sakya S. Sen*, Benz-amidinato calcium iodide catalyzed aldehyde and ketone hydroboration with unprecedented functional group tolerance, Chem. Commun., 53, 4562 - 4564 (2017).
• Milan Kumar Bisai, Sanjukta Pahar, Tamal Das, Kumar Vanka* And Sakya S. Sen*, Transition metal free catalytic hydroboration of aldehydes and aldimines by amidinato silane, Dalton Trans., 46, 2420 - 2424 (2017).
• Nasrina Parvin, Rajarshi Dasgupta, Shiv Pal, Sakya S. Sen* And Shabana Khan*, Strikingly diverse reactivity of structurally identical silylene and stannylene, Dalton Trans., 46, 6528 - 6532 (2017).
• Andreas E Seitz, Maria Eckhardt, Sakya S. Sen, Andreas Erlebach, Eugenia V Peresypkina, Herbert W Roesky, Marek Sierka* And Manfred Scheer*, Different Reactivity of As4 towards Disilenes and Silylenes, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 56, 6655 - 6659 (2017).
• Dhananjay S Doke, Shubhangi B Umbarkar, Manoj B Gawande, Radek Zboril And Ankush V Biradar, Environmentally Benign Bioderived Carbon Microspheres-Supported Molybdena Nanoparticles as Catalyst for the Epoxidation Reaction, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering., 5, 904 - 910 (2016), DOI:10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b02229.
• PM More, MK Dongare, SB Umbarkar, P Granger And C Dujardin, Bimetallic Au-Ag/Al2O3 as efficient catalysts for the Hydrocarbon Selective Reduction of NOxfrom lean burn engine exhaust, Catalysis Today., 206, 23 - 31 (2016), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cattod.2016.12.002.
• SS Kale, U Armbruster, R Eckelt, U Bentrup, SB Umbarkar, MK Dongare And A Martin, Understanding the role of Keggin type heteropolyacid catalysts for glycerol acetylation using toluene as an entrainer, Applied Catalysis A: General., 527, 9 - 18 (2016), DOI:org/10.1016/j.apcata.2016.08.016.
• Pavan M More, Shubhangi B Umbarkar And Mohan K Dongare, Template-free sol–gel synthesis of high surface area mesoporous silica based catalysts for esterification of di-carboxylic acids, Comptes Rendus Chimie., 10, 1247 - 1253 (2016), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crci.2016.02.001.
• Vaibhav R Acham, Mohan K Dongare, Erhard Kemnitz And Shubhangi B Umbarkar, An epoxide ring-opening reaction by using sol–gel-synthesized palladium supported on a strontium hydroxyl fluoride catalyst, Comptes Rendus Chimie., 19, 1237 - 1246 (2016), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crci.2016.07.008.
• Vaibhav R Acham, Shubhangi B Umbarkar, Mohan K Dongare And Erhard Kemnitz, Palladium Supported on Magnesium Hydroxyl Fluorides as Novel Catalyst for Selective Hydrogenation of Triglycerides Under Ambient Conditions, Advanced Porous Materials., 4, 31 - 38 (2016), DOI:org/10.1166/apm.2016.1098.
• AB Kulal, MK Dongare And SB Umbarkar, Sol–gel synthesised WO3 nanoparticles supported on mesoporous silica for liquid phase nitration of aromatics, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental., 182, 142 - 152 (2016), DOI:org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2015.09.020.
• Shyamapada Nandi, Santosh Kumar Singh, Dinesh Mullangi, Rajith Illathvalappil, Leena George, C. P. Vinod, Sreekumar Kurungot And Ramanathan Vaidhyanathan, Low Band Gap Benzimidazole COF Supported Ni3N as highly active OER catalyst, Advanced Energy Materials., 6(24), (2016), DOI:10.1002/aenm.201601189.
• Sadhu K. Kolekar, Anjani Dubey, Kalyani S. Date, Suwarna Datar And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, "An attempt to correlate surface physics and chemical properties : Molecular beam and Kelvin probe investigations of Ce 1-x Zr x O 2 thin films", Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics., 18, 27594 - 27602 (2016).
• Anjani Dubey, Sadhu K. Kolekar And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, C-H Activation of Methane to Formaldehyde on Ce1-xZrxO2 Thin films: A step to bridge the material gap, ChemCatChem., 8, 3650 - 3656 (2016).
• Kalpesh Sorathiya, Biswajit Mishra, Abhishek Kalarikkal, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath And Deepa Khushalani*, Enhancement in Rate of Photocatalysis Upon Catalyst Recycling, Nature Scientific Reports., 6, 35075 (2016).
• V. G. Landge, S. P. Midya, J. Rana, D. R. Shinde And E. Balaraman*, Expedient cobalt-catalyzed C–H alkynylation of (enantiopure) benzylamines, Org. Lett., 18, 5252 - 5255 (2016), DOI:10.1021/acs.orglett.6b02549.
  Prof. Douglass F. Taber has cited in his Highlight column on "Benzene Derivatives" in Organic Chemistry Portal: www.organic-chemistry.org/Highlights/2017/19June.shtm
• G. Jaiswal, V. Landge, D. Jagadeesan* And E. Balaraman*, Sustainable iron-catalyzed direct imine formation by acceptorless dehydrogenative coupling of alcohols with amines, Green Chem., 18, 3232 - 3238 (2016), DOI:10.1039/C6GC00565A.
  ChemInform Abstract: DOI: 10.1002/chin.201641098
• V. G. Landge, C. H. Shewale, G. Jaiswal, M. K. Sahoo, S. P. Midya And E. Balaraman*, Nickel-catalyzed direct alkynylation of C(sp2)-H bonds of amides: An “inverse Sonogashira strategy” to ortho-alkynylbenzoic acids, Catal. Sci. Technol., 6, 1946 - 1951 (2016), DOI:10.1039/C5CY01299F.
• Vinod G. Landge, G. Jaiswal And E. Balaraman, Cobalt-catalyzed bis-alkynylation of amides via double C–H bond activation, Org. Lett., 18, 812 - 815 (2016), DOI:10.1021/acs.orglett.6b00095.
• Sandip K. Singh And Paresh L. Dhepe, Isolation of lignin by Organosolv process from different varieties of rice husk: Understanding their physical and chemical properties, Bioresource Technology., 221, 310 - 317 (2016), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2016.09.042.
  The aim of this work was to study the difference in properties of lignins, those (organosolv lignins (ORGLs, 12±3% yield and 93±5% mass balance) were isolated from diverse rice husk (RH) substrates using organosolv procedure (water:ethanol, H2SO4) carried out at 180?C for 1 h. To identify the possible alterations in lignin structures several bulk and molecular level advanced characterization tools were employed. Even though lignins were extracted using common isolation procedure from three varieties of similar species of RH; from XRD, GPC, and elemental analysis it was found that those have comparable properties on bulk level. But molecular level analysis conducted using UV-Vis, ATR, 1D/2D HSQC NMR techniques could help disclose that isolated lignins have varying concentrations of G, H, S and T substructures. Additionally, the double bond equivalence of 4.4-4.7 reveals that few of the aromatic rings are devoid of substituent.
• V. S. V. S. N. Swamy, Sandeep Yadav, Shiv Pal, Tamal das, Kumar Vanka* And Sakya S. Sen*, Facile access to a Ge(II) dication stabilized by isocyanides, Chem. Commun., 52, 7890 - 7892 (2016).
• Sandeep Yadav, Sumana Saha And Sakya S. Sen*, Compounds having Low-Valent p-Block Elements for Small Molecule Activation and Catalysis, ChemCatChem., 8, 486 - 501 (2016).
• Sandeep Yadav, V. S. V. S. N. Swamy, Rajesh G Gonnade And Sakya S. Sen*, Benz-amidinato Stabilized a Monomeric Calcium Iodide and a Lithium Calciate(II) Cluster featuring Group 1 and Group 2 Elements, ChemistrySelect., 1, 1066 - 1071 (2016).
• Rüdiger Bertermann, Julian Böhnke, Holger Braunschweig, Rian D. Dewhurst, Thomas Kupfer, Jonas H. Muessig, Leanne Pentecost, Krzysztof Radacki, Sakya S. Sen And Alfredo Vargas, Dynamic, Reversible Oxidative Addition of Highly Polar Bonds to a Transition Metal, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 138, 16140 - 16147 (2016).
• Leena George, Athira K. Kunhikannan, Rajith Illathvalappil, Divya Ottoor And Sreekumar Kurungot and R. Nandini Devi, Understanding the electron transfer process in ZnO–naphthol azobenzoic acid composites from photophysical characterisation, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 18, 22179 - 22187 (2016), DOI:10.1039/C6CP02908F.
  Semiconductor nanoparticles surface modified with organic molecules capable of visible light absorption and effectively transferring the electrons to the catalytic sites have the potential to be good photocatalysts. ZnO nanoparticles of size ?3 nm are grafted with two azonaphthols, one conjugated and the other non-conjugated. The photophysical properties of modified ZnO indicate an effective electron transfer from the conjugated azonaphthol to ZnO but not in the case of the non-conjugated molecule. It is also observed from lifetime studies that the conjugated molecule stabilises the defect sites on ZnO nanoparticles. It is possible that excited electrons from the conjugated molecule are transferred to specific defect sites in ZnO. This apparently does not occur in the non-conjugated molecule, bringing to focus the importance of the photophysical characteristics of organic modifiers in designing visible light active photocatalysts.
• Chamundi P Jijil, Moorthi Lokanathan, Sundaresan Chithiravel, Chandrani Nayak, Dibyendu Bhattacharyya, Shambhu Nath Jha, Peram Delli Babu, Bhalchandra Kakade And and R. Nandini Devi, N Doping in Oxygen Deficient Ca2Fe2O5: A Strategy for Efficient Oxygen Reduction Oxide Catalysts, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces., Just Accepted Manuscript, (2016), DOI:10.1021/acsami.6b11718.
  Oxygen reduction reaction is increasingly being studied in oxide systems due to advantages ranging from cost effectiveness to desirable kinetics. Oxygen deficient oxides like brownmillerites are known to enhance ORR activity by providing oxygen adsorption sites. In parallel, N and Fe doping in C materials and consequent presence of catalytically active complex species like C-Fe-N is also suggested to be good strategies for designing ORR active catalysts. A combination of these features in a N doped Fe containing brownmillerite can be envisaged to present synergistic effects to improve the activity. This is conceptualized in this report through enhanced activity of N doped Ca2Fe2O5 brownmillerite when compared to its oxide parents. N doping is proved using neutron diffraction, UV-vis spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Electrical conductivity is also found to be enhanced by N doping which influences the activity. Electrochemical characterizations using cyclic voltammetry, rotating disc electrode and rotating ring disk electrode indicates an improved oxygen reduction activity in N-doped brownmillerite with a 10 mV positive shift in the onset potential. RRDE measurements show that both the compound exhibit 4-electron reduction pathways with lower H2O2 production in N-doped system also N-doped sample exhibited better stability. The observations will enable better designing of ORR catalysts which are stable and cost effective.
• Kshirodra K.Patra And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, Bimetallic and Plasmonic Ag-Au on TiO2 for Solar Water Splitting : An Active Nanocomposite for Entire Visible Light Region Absorption, ChemCatChem., 8, 3294 - 3311 (2016).
• Kandasamy Prabu, Marimuthu Prabu, Ashok Kumar Venugopal, WVY Sai Sandilya, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath* And Thirumalaiswamy Raja*, Effective and selective oxidation of 2-butanol over Mn supported catalyst systems, Applied Catalysis A: General., 525, 237 - 246 (2016).
• Subhasis Das, Biswarup Satpati, Himani Chauhan, Sasanka Deka, Manoj Kumar Ghosalya, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath And Tanushree Bala*, Seeding of Au on CdSe/CdS nanoplates using Langmuir–Blodgett technique, RSC Advances., 6, 14658 - 14665 (2016).
• Mukesh Kumar, Kiran Soni, Biswarup Satpati, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath And Sasanka Deka*, Exploration of magnetically separable Ag@AgxNiy core/graded-alloy-shell nanostructures, Chemical Communications., 52, 8737 - 8740 (2016).
• Anand S. Burange, Rakesh Shukla, Avesh Kumar Tyagi* And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, Palladium Supported on Fluorite Structured Redox CeZrO4-? for Heterogeneous Suzuki Coupling in Water: A Green Protocol, Chemistry select., 1, 2673 - 2681 (2016).
• Naveen K. Sathu, Perumal Devaraji And C. S. Gopinath*, Green Leaf to Inorganic Leaf: A Case Study of ZnO, Journal nanoscience and nanotechnology., 9, 9203 - 9208 (2016).
• Anjani Dubey, Sadhu K. Kolekar And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, "C-H Activation of Methane to Syngas on MnxCe1-x-yZryO2 - A Molecular Beam Study", ChemCatChem., 8, 2296 - 2307 (2016).
• Ambrose A.Melvin, Pradnya A. Bharad, Kavya Illath, Meenu P. Lawrence And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, Is there any Real effect of Low Dimensional Morphologies towards Light Harvesting? A Case Study of Au-rGO-TiO2 Nanocomposites, Chemistry Select., 5, 917 - 923 (2016).
• Kanak Roy, Ruchi Jain, Manoj Kumar Ghosalya, Kasala Prabhakar Reddy And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, Three Way Catalytic Converter Reactions Aspects at Near Ambient Temperatures on Modified Pd-Surfaces, Comptes Rendus Chimie., 19, 1363 - 1369 (2016).
• Anjani Dubey, Sadhu K. Kolekar, Edwin S. Gnanakumar, Kanak Roy, C. P. Vinod And Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, Porous Thin Films Towards Bridging the Material Gap in Heterogeneous Catalysis, Catalysis, Structure and Reactivity., 2, 1 - 12 (2016).
• Ruchi Jain, Anjani J Dubey, Manoj K Ghosalya And Gopinath S Chinnakonda , Gas-Solid Interaction of H2-Ce0.95Zr0.05O2: New Insights on Surface Participation in Heterogeneous Catalysis, Catalysis Science & Technology., 6, 1746 - 1756 (2016).
• Prasenjit Bhaumik And Paresh L. Dhepe, From Lignocellulosic Biomass to Furfural: Insight into the Active Species of a Silica-Supported Tungsten Oxide Catalyst, ChemCatChem., , (2016), DOI:10.1002/cctc.201600784R1.
  A sol-gel synthesized silica supported tungsten oxide catalyst that has Lewis acidity was characterized and employed as a solid acid catalyst in the synthesis of furfural directly from lignocellulosic biomass (isolated xylans and crop wastes). In a one-pot method, 71% furfural formation from isolated xylan was possible using a water/toluene (1:2 v/v) biphasic solvent system at 170°C after 10 h over 10 wt^% WO3/SiO2. The WO3/SiO2 catalyst in the selective conversion of pentosan from crop wastes (bagasse, wheat straw, and rice husk) yielded 72-87% furfural under the optimum reaction conditions. Additionally, the catalyst presented excellent recyclability in at least eight runs after simple water washing. From the catalyst characterization studies, it was suggested that silicotungstic-type acid species are anchored on the WO3/SiO2 catalyst that help to achieve a good catalytic activity.
• Kandasamy Prabu, Marimuthu Prabu, Ashok Kumar Venugopal, Aswathy Thareparambil Venugopalan, W.V.Y. Sai Sandilya, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath And Thirumalaiswamy Raja, Effective and selective oxidation of 2-butanol over Mn supported catalyst systems, Applied Catalysis A: General., 525, 237 - 246 (2016), DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apcata.2016.08.005.
• Sandip K. Singh And Paresh L. Dhepe, Ionic liquids catalyzed lignin liquefaction: mechanistic studies using TPO-MS, FT-IR, RAMAN and 1D, 2D-HSQC/NOSEY NMR, Green Chemistry., 18, 4098 - 4108 (2016), DOI:10.1039/C6GC00771F.
  Valorization of a profusely available alternate resource, biomass and in particular its 3-D intricate component lignin into low molecular weight aromatic products are used as platform chemicals and fuel additives, and developing a low temperature catalytic process is imperative in preserving atom efficiency. Ionic liquids, due to their unique properties, offer an advantage to develop such methods under milder conditions. Herein, we show use of –SO3H functionalized imidazolium based various recyclable Brønsted acidic ionic liquids (BAILs) in catalytic quantity under ambient pressure at 120 °C for depolymerization of lignin (60000 g mol?1) into THF soluble products with high efficiency (78% yield, 95% ± 5% mass balance). The decoding of this efficiency by 1D and 2D (HSQC/NOSEY) NMR, FT-IR and RAMAN studies exemplify that the –OH group(s) interact with the electron deficient BAIL cation. The mechanistic insights unraveled in this study open a plethora of opportunities to design catalysts for developing efficient processes.
• , Nanoscale., , (2016), DOI:10.1039/c5nr06756a.
• Rawesh Kumara, Sneha Shaha, Jitendra Bahadur, Yuri B. Melnichenko, Debasis Sen, S. Mazumder, C. P. Vinod And Biswajit Chowdhury, Highly stable In-SBA-15 catalyst for vapor phase Beckmann rearrangement reaction, Microporous and Mesoporous Materials., (just accepted), (2016), DOI:10.1016/j.micromeso.2016.07.024.
• Sakya S. Sen and Herbert W. Roesky, Efficient Methods for Preparing Silicon Compounds, Academic Press, Elsevier., Chapter 17 and 18, (2016).
• Sreedhala S, Shruti Maheshwari, Betsy K J And C. P. Vinod*, Large Trisoctahedral Au nanoparticles encapsulated inside porous silica catalyses CO oxidation at room temperature: Probing the effect of encapsulation and the role of step atoms and interfaces, Applied Catalysis A: General., 524, 1 - 7 (2016), DOI:10.1016/j.apcata.2016.05.023.
• Marimuthu Manikandan, Ashok Kumar Venugopal, Kandasamy Prabu, Ratnesh Kumar Jha And Raja Thirumalaiswamy*, Role of surface synergistic effect on the performance of Ni-based hydrotalcite catalyst for highly efficient hydrogenation of furfural, Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical., 417, 153 - 162 (2016), DOI:10.1016/j.molcata.2016.03.019.
• Marimuthu Manikandan, Ashok Kumar Venugopal, Atul S. Nagpure And Satyanarayana Chilukuri* and Thirumalaiswamy Raja*, Promotional effect of Fe on the performance of supported Cu catalyst for ambient pressure hydrogenation of furfural, RSC Advances., 6, 3888 - 3898 (2016), DOI:10.1039/C5RA24742J.
• A C Sunil Sekhar* And C P Vinod *, Gold incorporated mesoporous silica thin film model surface as a robust SERS and catalytically active substrate, Molecules., (invited article for a speciail issue "Coinage Metal (Copper, Silver, and Gold) Catalysis", (2016).
• Soumya B. Narendranath, Saranya V. Thekkeparambil, Leena George, Shibin Thundiyil And R. Nandini Devi, Photocatalytic H2 evolution from water–methanol mixtures on InGaO3(ZnO)m with an anisotropic layered structure modified with CuO and NiO cocatalysts, J. Mol. Cat. A., 415, 82 - 88 (2016), DOI:10.1016/j.molcata.2016.01.018.
  InGaO3(ZnO)m series of oxides is found to be active for photocatalytic H2 evolution from water–methanol mixtures. The structure of this series is highly anisotropic with InO6 octahedral layers sandwiching Ga/ZnOn polyhedra. The structural anisotropy in which the conducting layer is spatially separated from the charge generation sites may help in suppressing charge recombination and consequently enhance catalytic activity. The band gaps of the series obtained from absorption spectra are above 3.6 eV and hence they are not active under visible light irradiation. H2 evolution is considerably enhanced under UV light on employing NiO as cocatalyst due to facile electron transfer from InGaO3(ZnO)m to NiO. However, when CuO is used as cocatalyst, visible light activity could be brought out. Due to the very low band gap of CuO, it can act as a sensitizer absorbing in visible light. The band positions become conducive for H2 evolution due to band alignments consequent to electron accumulation in CuO conduction band.
• S. Sreedhala, V. Sudheeshkumar And C. P. Vinod*, "CO oxidation on large high index faceted Pd nanostructures", Journal of Catalysis., 337, 138 - 144 (2016), DOI:10.1016/j.jcat.2016.01.017.
• A. B. Vysakh, Anish Lazar, V. Yadukiran, A. P. Singh And C. P. Vinod*, Phenyl acetylene hydrogenation on Au@Ni bimetallic core shell nanoparticles synthesized under mild conditions, Catalysis Science and Technology., 6, 708 - 712 (2016), DOI:10.1039/C5CY02005K.
• A. B. Vysakh, V. Yadukiran, Anish Lazar And A. P. Singh And C. P. Vinod*, "Synthesis of Au@Ni bimetallic core shell nanoparticle and nanochains in soyabean oil and their catalytic hydrogenation reactions", Chemistry Select., 1 (2), 140 - 146 (2016), DOI:10.1002/slct.201500006.
• Anish Lazar, Shoy George, Jithesh P R, C P Vinod And A. P. Singh*, Correlating the role of hydrophilic/hydrophobic nature of Rh(I) and Ru(II) supported organosilica/silica catalysts in organotransformation reactions, Applied Catalysis A., 513, 138 - 146 (2016), DOI:10.1016/j.apcata.2015.12.026.
• Anish Lazar, C P Vinod And A. P. Singh*, A simple, phosphine free, reusable Pd(II)-2,2’-Dihydroxybenzophenone-SBA-15 catalyst for arylation and hydrogenation reactions of alkenes, New Journal of Chemistry., (accepted), (2016), DOI:10.1039/C5NJ02686E.
• Anjani Dubey, Sadhu K. Kolekar, Edwin S. Gnanakumar, Kanak Roy, C. P. Vinod And Chinnakonda S. Gopinatha, Porous Thin Films Towards Bridging the Material Gap in Heterogeneous Catalysis, Catalysis, Structure and Reactivity., (accepted), (2016).
• Wenhao Fang, Sébastien Paul, Mickaël Capron, Ankush V Biradar, Shubhangi B Umbarkar, Mohan K Dongare, Franck Dumeignil And Louise Jalowiecki-Duhamel, Highly loaded well dispersed stable Ni species in NiXMg2AlOY nanocomposites: Application to hydrogen production from bioethanol, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental., 166–167, 485 - 496 (2015), DOI:org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2014.11.052.
• Pavan M More, Duy L Nguyen, Pascal Granger, Christophe Dujardin, Mohan K Dongare And Shubhangi B Umbarkar, Activation by pretreatment of Ag–Au/Al2O3 bimetallic catalyst to improve low temperature HC-SCR of NOx for lean burn engine exhaust, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental., 174, 145 - 156 (2015), DOI:org/10.1016/j.apcatb.2015.02.035.
• S Kale, SB Umbarkar, MK Dongare, R Eckelt, U Armbruster And A Martin, Selective formation of triacetin by glycerol acetylation using acidic ion-exchange resins as catalyst and toluene as an entrainer, Applied Catalysis A: General., 490, 10 - 16 (2015).
• V S V S N Swamy, Shiv Pal, Shabana Khan* And Sakya S. Sen*, Cations and dications of heavier group 14 elements in low oxidation state, Dalton Trans., 44, 12903 - 12923 (2015).
• Holger Braunschweig, Mehmet A. Celik, Rian D. Dewhurst, Magdalena Heid, Florian. Hupp And Sakya S. Sen, Stepwise isolation of low-valent, low-coordinate Sn and Pb mono- and dications in the coordination sphere of platinum, Chem. Sci., 6, 425 - 435 (2015).
• S. P. Midya, M. K. Sahoo, V. G. Landge, P. R. Rajamohanan And E. Balaraman*, Reversed reactivity of anilines with alkynes in the rhodium-catalysed C–H activation/carbonylation tandem, Nature Commun., 6, 8591 - 8601 (2015), DOI:10.1038/ncomms9591.
• A. Nandakumar, M. K. Sahoo And E. Balaraman*, Reverse-hydroformylation: A missing reaction explored, Org. Chem. Front., 2, 1422 - 1424 (2015), DOI:10.1039/c5qo00229j.
• A. Nandakumar, * S. P. Midya, V. G. Landge And E. Balaraman*, Transition-metal catalysed hydrogen transfer annulation strategy to heterocyclic scaffolds, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 54, 11022 - 11034 (2015), DOI:10.1002/anie.201503247.
• V.G. Landge, M. K. Sahoo, S. P. Midya, G.Jaiswal And E. Balaraman*, Well-defined palladium(II) complexes for ligand enabled C(sp3)-alkynylation, Dalton Trans., 44, 15382 - 15386 (2015), DOI:10.1039/C5DT02772A.
• E. Balaraman, D. Srimani, Y. Diskin-Posner And D. Milstein*, Direct synthesis of secondary amines from alcohols and ammonia catalyzed by a ruthenium pincer complex, Catal. Lett., 145, 139 - 144 (2015), DOI:10.1007/s10562-014-1422-2.
• , Molecular Simulations., , (2015), DOI:10.1080/08927022.2015.1067368.
• , Nanoscale., , (2015), DOI:10.1039/C5NR05715A.
• Kaliyappan Periyasamy, Venugopalan T. Aswathy, Venugopal Ashok kumar, Marimuthu Manikandan, Rakesh Shukla And Avesh K. Tyagi and Thirumalaiswamy Raja*, An efficient robust fluorite CeZrO4?? oxide catalyst for the eco-benign synthesis of styrene, RSC Advances., 5, 3619 - 3626 (2015), DOI:10.1039/C4RA12355G.
• Atul S. Nagpure, Ashok Kumar Venugopal, Nishita Lucas, Marimuthu Manikandan And Raja Thirumalaiswamy * and Satyanarayana Chilukuri *, Renewable fuels from biomass-derived compounds: Ru-containing hydrotalcites as catalysts for conversion of HMF to 2,5-dimethylfuran, Catalysis Science & Technology., 5, 1463 - 1472 (2015), DOI:10.1039/c4cy01376j.
• D. Sardar, S. K. Neogi, S. Bandyopadhyay, B. Satpati, M. Ahir, A. Adhikary, R. Jain, C. S. Gopinath And T. Bala*, Multifaceted core-shell nanoparticles: Superparamagnetism and biocompatibility, New Journal of Chemistry., 39, 8513 - 8521 (2015).
• Prasenjit Bhaumik And Paresh L. Dhepe, Conversion of Biomass into Sugars, Biomass Sugars for Non-Fuel Applications., 43, 1 - 53 (2015), DOI:10.1039/9781782622079.
• Trupti V. Kotbagi, Swati L. Pandhare, Mohan K. Dongare And Shubhangi B. Umbarkar , In situ formed supported silicomolybdic heteropolyanions: efficient solid catalyst for acetylation of glycerol, International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry., 02(05), (2015), DOI:10.4172/2380-2391.1000160.
• P.M. More, D.L. Nguyen, M.K. Dongare, S.B. Umbarkar, N. Nuns, J.-S. Girardon, C. Dujardin, C. Lancelot, A.-S. Mamede And P. Granger , Rational preparation of Ag and Au bimetallic catalysts for the hydrocarbon-SCR of NOx: Sequential deposition vs. coprecipitation method, Applied Catalysis B Environmental., 162, 11 - 20 (2015), DOI:10.1016/j.apcatb.2014.06.031.
• S. Kale, S.B. Umbarkar, M.K. Dongare, R. Eckelt, U. Armbruster And A. Martin , Selective formation of triacetin by glycerol acetylation using acidic ion-exchange resins as catalyst and toluene as entrainer, Applied Catalysis A General., 490, 10 - 16 (2015), DOI:10.1016/j.apcata.2014.10.059.
• Wenhao Fang, Sébastien Paul, Mickaël Capron, Ankush V. Biradar, Shubhangi B. Umbarkar, Mohan K. Dongare, Franck Dumeignil And Louise Jalowiecki-Duhamel , Highly loaded well dispersed stable Ni species in NiXMg2AlOY nanocomposites: application to hydrogen production from bioethanol, Applied Catalysis B Environmental., 166-167, 485 - 496 (2015), DOI:10.1016/j.apcatb.2014.11.052.
• Pavan M. More, Duy L. Nguyen, Pascal Granger, Christophe Dujardin, Mohan K. Dongare And Shubhangi B. Umbarkar, Activation by pretreatment of Ag–Au/Al2O3 bimetallic catalyst to improve low temperature HC-SCR of NOx for lean burn engine exhaust, Applied Catalysis B Environmental., 174, 145 - 156 (2015), DOI:10.1016/j.apcatb.2015.02.035.
• Prakash Chandra, Dhananjay S. Doke, Shubhangi B. Umbarkar, Kumar Vanka And Ankush V. Biradar , Silica microspheres containing high density surface hydroxyl groups as efficient epoxidation catalysts, RSC Advances., 5(27), 21125 - 21131 (2015), DOI:10.1039/C5RA00374A.
• A.B. Kulal, M.K. Dongare And S.B. Umbarkar, Sol gel synthesised WO3 nanoparticles supported on mesoporous silica for liquid phase nitration of aromatics, Applied Catalysis B., , 142 - 152 (2015), DOI:10.1016/j.apcatb.2015.09.020.
• Leena George, Subrahmanyam Sappati, Prasenjit Ghosh And and R. Nandini Devi, Surface Site Modulations by Conjugated Organic Molecules to Enhance Visible Light Activity of ZnO Nanostructures in Photocatalytic Water Splitting, J. Phys. Chem. C., 119, 3060 - 3067 (2015), DOI:10.1021/jp511996z.
  Surface modification of ZnO nanoparticles is identified as a method of modulating surface sites advantageously. ZnO nanoparticles of two different sizes are surface modified with a conjugated organic moiety to enable electron conduction and transfer. Enhanced H2 evolution from water methanol mixtures was observed in the composite systems compared to pristine ZnO under visible light irradiation without any cocatalyst. The system is also marginally active in water splitting in pure water without any sacrificial agents. Photophysical characterisation indicates that even though reducing size into nanoregime affects the band gap detrimentally, modifications by simple conjugated organic molecules assist in enhanced visible light activity. The experimental observations are corroborated with computational studies, which also point to a localisation of valence band maximum of the interface on the organic moiety and conduction band minimum on ZnO.
• S. Gupta, C. P. Vinod And D. Jagadeeshan, Preparation of mesoporous titanosilicate with isolated Ti active centers for cyclohexene oxidation, RSC Advances., 5, 92371 - 92377 (2015), DOI:10.1039/c5ra18044a.
• Prasenjit Bhaumik and Paresh L. Dhepe, Solid Acid Catalyzed Synthesis of Furans from Carbohydrates, Cat. Rev.-Sci. Eng., , (2015), DOI:10.1080/01614940.2015.1099894.
  The alternative feedstock, biomass (particularly lignocelluloses) having profuse availability is promising for the synthesis of several value-added chemicals which are currently obtained from fossil feedstock. In this review, the synthesis of two extremely significant furan chemicals viz. furfural and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) are discussed. In the synthesis of furans from biomass, numerous challenges for instance, use of edible sugars as substrates, selectivity to furans, their isolation in pure form, reuse of catalyst, environmental issues etc. are perceived and in recent past researchers tried to resolve those by developing advance methodologies. This review summarizes latest progresses made in the above mentioned areas comprehensively and also commentary is given on the analyses of results, rationale for observed activity and mechanisms etc. Review also discusses future aspects of this work.
• Babasaheb. M. Matsagar, Mudassir. K. Munshi, Ashutosh A. Kelkar And Paresh L. Dhepe, Conversion of concentrated sugar solutions into 5-hydroxymethyl furfural and furfural using Brönsted acidic ionic liquids, Catal. Sci. Tenchnol., , (2015), DOI:10.1039/C5CY00858A.
  Catalytic amounts of recyclable Brönsted acidic ionic liquids (BAILs) yielded HMF (73%) and furfural (81%) with high selectivity from highly concentrated solutions of D-fructose (40 wt%) and D-xylose (3 wt%), respectively. With a 6 wt% D-xylose solution, 73% yield was observed. An activity–property correlation of BAIL is established.
• Ambrose A. Melvin, Kavya Illath, Tanmay Das, T. Raja, Somnath Bhattacharyya And C. S. Gopinath*, M-Au/TiO2 (M = Ag, Pd, and Pt) Nanophotocatalyst for overall solar water splitting: Role of Interfaces, Nanoscale., 7, 13477 - 13488 (2015).
• Pradnya A. Bharad, K. Sivaranjani And C. S. Gopinath*, A Rational Approach Towards Enhancing Solar Water Splitting : A Case Study of Au – RGO/N-RGO – TiO2, Nanoscale., 7, 11206 - 11215 (2015).
• Baljeet Singh, Kaustubh R. Mote, C. S. Gopinath, P. K. Madhu* And Vivek Polshettiwar*, SBA-15-Oxynitrides as a Solid-Base Catalyst: Effect of Nitridation Temperature, Angewandte Chemie International Ed., 54, 5985 - 5989 (2015).
• C. S. Gopinath*, K. Roy And S. Nagarajan, Can we shift and/or broaden the catalysis regime towards ambient temperature?, ChemCatChem., 7, 588 - 594 (2015).
• S. Raja Ambal, K. Sivaranjani And C. S. Gopinath*, Recent Developments in Solar H2 Generation from Water Splitting, Journal of Chemical Science., 127, 33 - 47 (2015).
• Manjusha V. Patwadkar, C. S. Gopinath And M. V. Badiger*, An efficient Ag-nanoparticle embedded semi-IPN hydrogel for catalytic applications, RSC Advances., 5, 7567 - 7574 (2015).
• S. Sreedhala and C. P. Vinod*, Surfactant assisted formation of Ruthenium nanochains under mild conditions and their catalytic CO oxidation activity, Chemical Communications., 51, 10178 - 10181 (2015), DOI:10.1039/C4CC09430A.
• D. Mullangi, S. Nandi, S. Shalini, S. Sreedhala , C. P. Vinod And R. Vaidhyanathan, Pd loaded amphiphilic COF as catalyst for multi-fold Heck reactions, C-C couplings and CO oxidation, Nature Scientific Reports., , (2015), DOI:10.1038/srep10876.
• Sumbul Rahman, S. A. Farooqui, Aditya Rai, Rawesh Kumar, Chiranjit Santra, Vinod C P, Gopala Ram Bhadu, Debasis Sen, S. Mazumder, Sudip Maity And Anil Sinha and Biswajit Chowdhury, Mesoporous TUD-1 supported indium oxide nanoparticles for epoxidation of styrene using molecular O2, RSC Advances., (Just Accepted), (2015), DOI:10.1039/C5RA03400K.
• Vysakh A. Bharathan, Chinchu Lizen Babu And C. P. Vinod*, "Demonstration of Synergistic Catalysis in Au@Ni Bimetallic Core Shell Nanostructures", J Phys Chem C., 119 (15), 8138 - 8146 (2015), DOI:10.1021/jp5128089.
• A. C. Sunil Sekhar, K. V. Ziyad, Y. Soni And C. P. Vinod*, Activity enhancement on Titanium incorporation: Au@Ti-SiO2 core shell nanocatalysts for CO oxidation reaction, ChemCatChem., 7 (7), 1222 - 1230 (2015), DOI:10.1002/cctc.201402954.
• S. Sreedhala, V. Sudheeshkumar And C. P. Vinod* , Oxidation catalysis by large trisoctahedral gold nanoparticles: Mind the step!, Catalysis Today., 244, 177 - 183 (2015), DOI:10.1016/j.cattod.2014.02.049.
• Prasenjit Bhaumik And Paresh L. Dhepe, Effects of careful designing of SAPO-44 catalysts on the efficient synthesis of furfural, Catal. Today., 251, 66 - 72 (2015), DOI:10.1016/j.cattod.2014.10.042.
  Considering the growing importance of furfural, it is necessary to develop a robust solid acid catalyst for the conversion of xylan (hemicelluloses) into furfural in a one-pot method. In this study, the effects of various components (Si, Al and P) and crystallization time on the preparation of acidic materials and their properties are extensively described. It is seen that with the increase in crystallization time (0, 48, 96, 176 h) during the synthesis of silicoaluminophosphate (SAPO-44), materials morphology changes from amorphous to AFI to CHA and the best activity for furfural synthesis (82%) from xylan was observed with SAPO-44 catalyst aged for 176 h. Since, acidity in the SAPO-44 is guided by the incorporation of Si in the ALPO framework, study on Si molar concentration (0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4 and 1.6) in SAPO-44 was carried out and it was observed that SAPO-44 having 1.0 mole of Si content is the best catalyst for the xylan/xylose conversion to furfural. Catalyst structure-activity correlation is thoroughly defined with the help of several physico-chemical properties.
• Chamundi P Jijil , Siddheshwar N. Bhange , Sreekumar Kurungot And and R. Nandini Devi, Effect of B site coordination environment in the ORR activity in disordered brownmillerites Ba2In2-xCexO5+?, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces., Just Accepted Manusript, (2015), DOI:10.1021/am5087837.
  Ba2In2O5 brownmillerites in which In site is progressively doped with Ce exhibit excellent oxygen reduction activity under alkaline conditions. Ce doping leads to structural changes advantageous for the reaction. 25% doping retains the ordered structure of brownmillerite with alternate layers of tetrahedra and octahedra whereas further increase in Ce concentration creates disorder. Structures with disordered oxygen atoms/vacancies are found to be better ORR catalysts probably aided by isotropic ionic conduction and Ba2In0.5Ce1.5O5+? is the most active. This enhanced activity is correlated to the more symmetric Ce site coordination environment in this compound. Stoichiometric perovskite BaCeO3 with the highest concentration of Ce shows very poor activity emphasizing the importance of oxygen vacancies, which facilitate O2 adsorption, in tandem with catalytic sites in oxygen reduction reactions.
• Anup P. Tathod And Paresh L. Dhepe, Efficient method for the conversion of agricultural waste into sugar alcohols over supported bimetallic catalysts, Bioresour. Technol., 178, 36 - 44 (2015), DOI:10.1016/j.biortech.2014.10.036.
  Promoter effect of Sn in the PtSn/g-Al2O3 (AL) and PtSn/C bimetallic catalysts is studied for the conversion of variety of substrates such as, C5 sugars (xylose, arabinose), C6 sugars (glucose, fructose, galactose), hemicelluloses (xylan, arabinogalactan), inulin and agricultural wastes (bagasse, rice husk, wheat straw) into sugar alcohols (sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, arabitol, galactitol). In all the reactions, PtSn/AL showed enhanced yields of sugar alcohols by 1.5 to 3 times than Pt/AL. Compared to C, AL supported bimetallic catalysts showed prominent enhancement in the yields of sugar alcohols. Bimetallic catalysts characterized by X-ray diffraction study revealed the stability of catalyst and absence of alloy formation thereby indicating that Pt and Sn are present as individual particles in PtSn/AL. The TEM analysis also confirmed stability of the catalysts and XPS study disclosed formation of electron deficient Sn species which helps in polarizing carbonyl bond to achieve enhanced hydrogenation activity.
• A. K. Deepa And Paresh L. Dhepe, Lignin depolymerization into aromatic monomers over solid acid catalysts, ACS Catal., 5, 365 - 379 (2015), DOI:10.1021/cs501371q.
  It is imperative to develop an efficient and environmentally benign pathway to valorize profusely available lignin, a component of non-edible lignocellulosic materials into value-added aromatic monomers, which can be used as fuel additives and platform chemicals. To convert lignin, earlier studies used mineral bases (NaOH, CsOH) or supported metal catalysts (Pt, Ru, Pd, Ni on C, SiO2, Al2O3 etc.) under hydrogen atmosphere but these methods face several drawbacks such as corrosion, difficulty in catalyst recovery, sintering of metals, loss of activity etc. Here we show that under inert atmosphere various solid acid catalysts can efficiently convert six different types of lignins in to value-added aromatic monomers. Particularly, SiO2, Al2O3 catalyst gave exceptionally high yields of ca. 60 % for organic solvent soluble extracted products with 95±10 % mass balance in the depolymerization of Dealkaline lignin, Bagasse lignin, ORG and EORG lignins at 250 oC within 30 min. The GC, GC-MS, HPLC, LC-MS, and GPC analysis of organic soluble extracted products confirmed the formation of aromatic monomers with ca. 90 % selectivity. In the products, confirmation of retention of aromatic nature as present in lignin and appearance of several functional groups is done by FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR studies. Further, isolation of major products by column chromatography was carried out to obtain aromatic monomers in pure form and their further characterization by NMR is presented. Detailed characterization of six different types of lignins obtained from various sources helped in substantiating the catalytic results obtained in these reactions. Meticulous study on fresh and spent catalysts revealed that the amorphous catalysts are preferred to obtain reproducible catalytic results.
• Babasaheb M. Matsagar And Paresh L. Dhepe, Brönsted acidic ionic liquids catalyzed conversion of hemicellulose into sugars, Catal. Sci. Technol., 5, 531 - 539 (2015), DOI:10.1039/C4CY01047G.
  Development of competent method for the conversion of hemicelluloses, a lignocellulosic component into sugars is essential. In a one-pot method, at 160 °C and in water media, Brönsted acidic ionic liquid (BAIL) catalyzed hydrolysis of hardwood hemicellulose gives 87% yield for C5 sugars (xylose+arabinose). The efficiency of the ILs and acid strength both followed the similar trend, [C3SO3HMIM][HSO4] > [C3SO3HMIM][PTS] > [C3SO3HMIM][Cl] > [BMIM][Cl]. The ion-dipole type interaction present between BAIL and substrate which is proposed by 1H NMR study is suggested to help in achieving better activity with BAIL compared to mineral acid, H2SO4.
• Johannes Brand, Holger Braunschweig, Florian Hupp, Ashwini K. Phukan, Krzysztof Radacki And Sakya S. Sen, A B–C Double Bond Unit Coordinated to Platinum: An Alkylideneboryl Ligand that is Isoelectronic to Neutral Aminoborylene Ligands, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 53, 2240 - 2244 (2014).
• Sakya S. Sen*, A Stable Silanone with a Tri-coordinate Silicon Atom: Century's Wait is Over, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 53, 8820 - 8822 (2014).
  Invited Highlight
• Johannes Brand, Holger Braunschweig And Sakya S. Sen, B=B and B?E (E=O and N) Multiple Bonds in the Coordination Sphere of Late Transition Metals, Acc. Chem. Res., 47, 180 - 191 (2014).
• E. Balaraman* And D. Milstein, Hydrogenation of polar bonds catalysed by ruthenium-pincer complexes, Top. Organomet. Chem., 48, 19 - 44 (2014), DOI:10.1007/3418_2014_77.
  Book Chapter: Ruthenium in catalysis (Eds: C. Bruneau, P. H. Dixneuf)
• , Applied Surface Science., , (2014), DOI:10.1016/j.apsusc.2014.09.042.
• Sanjay Singh Negi, Aswathy Thareparambil Venugopalan, Thirumalaiswamy Raja And Anand Pal Singh and Chinnakonda S. Gopinath, A green chemistry approach to styrene from ethylbenzene and air on MnxTi1?xO2 catalyst, RSC Advances., 4, 57087 - 57097 (2014), DOI:10.1039/C4RA11814F.
• Edwin S. Gnanakumar, Jarpla Madhusudhan Naik, Marimuthu Manikandan And Thirumalaiswamy Raja and Chinnakonda S. Gopinath*, Role of Nanointerfaces in Cu- and Cu+ Au-Based Near- Ambient-Temperature CO Oxidation Catalysts, ChemCatChem., 6, 3116 - 3124 (2014), DOI:10.1002/cctc.201402581.
• Vaibhav R. Acham, Ankush V. Biradar, Mohan K. Dongare, Erhard Kemnitz And Shubhangi B. Umbarkar , Palladium nanoparticles supported on magnesium hydroxide fluorides: a selective catalyst for olefin hydrogenation, ChemCatChem., 6(11), 3182 - 3191 (2014), DOI:10.1002/cctc.201402469.
• Swati L. Pandharea, Rajesh R. Jadhaoa, Vedavati G. Puranikb, Pranaya V. Joshib, Frédéric Capetc, Mohan K. Dongarea, Shubhangi B. Umbarkara, Christophe Michonc And Francine Agbossou-Niedercornc, Molybdenum(VI) dioxo complexes for the epoxidation of allylic alcohols and olefins, Journal of Organometallic Chemistry., 772-773, 271 - 279 (2014), DOI:10.1016/j.jorganchem.2014.09.029.
• Prakash Chandra, Dhananjay S. Doke, Shubhangi B. Umbarkar And Ankush V. Biradar , One-pot synthesis of ultrasmall MoO3 nanoparticles supported on SiO2, TiO2, and ZrO2 nanospheres: an efficient epoxidation catalyst, Journal of Materials Chemistry A., 2, 19060 - 19066 (2014), DOI:10.1039/C4TA03754E.
• Pavan M. More, Neelam Jagtapa, Atul B. Kulal, Mohan K. Dongare And Shubhangi B. Umbarkar , Magnesia doped Ag/Al2O3 – Sulfur tolerant catalyst for low temperature HC-SCR of NOx, Applied Catalysis B Environmental., 144, 408 - 415 (2014), DOI:10.1016/j.apcatb.2013.07.044.
• Vidhya C. Ghantani, Mohan K. Dongare And Shubhangi B. Umbarkar , Nonstoichiometric calcium pyrophosphate: A highly efficient and selective catalyst for dehydration of lactic acid to acrylic acid, RSC Advances., 4(63), 33319 - 33326 (2014), DOI:10.1039/C4RA06429A.
• S. Das, B. Satpati, H. Chauhan, S. Deka, C. S. Gopinath And T. Bala*, Preferential growth of Au on CdSe quantum dots using Langmuir-Blodgett technique, RSC Advances., , 64535 - 64541 (2014).
• S. S. Negi, T. V. Aswathy, T. Raja*, A. P. Singh And C. S. Gopinath*, A green chemistry approach to styrene from ethylbenzene and air on MnxTi1-xO2 catalyst, RSC Advances., 4, 64535 - 64541 (2014).
• S. Raja Ambal, A. K. Yadav, S. N. Jha, D. Bhattacharyya And C. S. Gopinath*, Electronic structure – Sunlight driven water splitting activity correlation of (Zn1-yGay)(O1-zNz), Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics., 16, 23654 - 23662 (2014).
• E. S. Gnanakumar, Madhusudhan Naik J., M. Manikandan, T. Raja And C. S. Gopinath*, Role of nano-interfaces in Cu and Cu + Au based near ambient temperature CO oxidation catalysts, ChemCatChem., 6, 3116 - 3124 (2014).
• P. Devaraji, N. K. Sathu And C. S. Gopinath*, Ambient oxidation of benzene to phenol by photocatalysis on Au/Ti0.98V0.02O2 : Role of Holes, ACS Catalysis., 4, 2844 - 2853 (2014).
• D. Sardar, S. K. Neogi, S. Bandyopadhyay, B. Satpati, R. Jain, C. S. Gopinath And T. Bala*, A facile method for synthesis of Co-core Au-shell nanohybrid, New Journal of Chemistry., 38, 4107 - 4114 (2014).
• S. Raja Ambal, M. Mapa And C. S. Gopinath* , In1-xGaxN@ZnO: A rationally designed and quantum dot integrated material for water splitting and solar harvesting applications, Dalton Transactions., 43, 12546 - 12554 (2014).
• J. Kowalska* And C. S. Gopinath, Mapping of copper oxidation state using high pressure photoelectron spectroscopy, Acta Physica Polonica A., 125, 1065 - 1066 (2014).
• K. Roy, R. Jain And C. S. Gopinath*, Towards A Sustainable and Near Ambient DeNOx Under Lean Burn Conditions: A Revisit to NO Reduction on Virgin and Modified Pd(111) Surfaces, ACS Catalysis., 4, 1801 - 1811 (2014).
• E. S. Gnanakumar, C. Eswara Rao, S. Kunjir, T.G. Ajithkumar, P. R. Rajamohanan, D. Chakraborty And C. S. Gopinath* , 9-Fluorenemethanol: An Internal Electron Donor to Fine Tune Olefin Polymerization Activity, Dalton Transactions., 14, 9143 - 9151 (2014).
• K. Roy And C. S. Gopinath*, UV photoelectron spectroscopy at near ambient pressures: Mapping valence band electronic structure changes from Cu to CuO, Analytical Chemistry., 86, 3683 - 3687 (2014).
• Shelu Garg, Kapil Soni, V.V.D.N. Prasad, Manoj Kumar, T. Bhaskar, J. K. Gupta, G. Murali Dhar* And C. S. Gopinath, Effect of method of preparation on hydrodesulphurization activity of Co- and Ni-promoted MoS2/SBA-15 catalysts, Journal of Chemical Science., 126, 437 - 444 (2014).
• Sourav Bag, Kanak Roy, C. S. Gopinath And C. Retna Raj* , A Facile Single-Step Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Reduced Graphene Oxide - Mn3O4 Hybrid Functional Material for the Electrocatalytic Reduction of Oxygen, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces., 6, 2692 - 2699 (2014).
• N. R. Gupta, B. L. V. Prasad, C. S. Gopinath* And M. V. Badiger*, A Nanocomposite of Silver and Thermo-associating Polymer by Green Route: A Potential Soft-Hard Material for Controlled Drug Release, RSC Advances., 4, 10261 - 10268 (2014).