Research Interest:

Materials and Applications

  • Studying the Catalytic behaviour of Hydrotalcites and hydrotalcites doped with heteroatoms
  • Functionalization of alkanes - Selective oxidation of ethane to acetic acid. 
  • Gas to Liquid-synthesis of dimethyl ether (DME) from syngas.
  • Selective oxidation reactions, Preparation of heterogeneous catalysts (mixed metal oxide, functionalized mesoporous materials) by various methods (slurry, hydrothermal, sol-gel etc) for different catalytic applications.
  • Working to develop a new heterogeneous process for Synthesis of Biofuels ( Biodiesel)

Expertise

  • Operating High pressure and temperature batch reactors (Parr and Autoclave Engineering make)
  • BTRS-Jr (autoclave engineering make) pressure reactors (fixed bed reactor)
  • Multiple high pressure and high temperature fixed bed reactors
  • 5980 and Chemito-India GCs (both on-line and off-line)
    • .

Professional Experience

  • 2002- Current- Scientist, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India
  • 1999 - 2000 Post Doctoral Fellow in The laboratoire de materiaux catalytiques et catalyse en chimie Organique, UMR – 5618, ENSCM-CNRS, 8, Rue de l’Ecole Normale, 34296 Montpellier, FRANCE
  • Jan 2002 - Dec 2002 - JSPS post doctoral Fellow: The Department of Materials science and Engineering, Gifu University, Gifu – 501 1193, JAPAN.

Selected Publications

  • Wenhao Fang, Cyril Pirez,Mickae¨l Capron,Se´bastien Paul, Thirumalaiswamy Raja,Paresh L. Dhepe,Franck Dumeignilabe and Louise Jalowiecki-Duhamel: RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 9626-9634
  • Edwin S. Gnanakumar, Jino C. John, Thirumalaiswamy Raja, Chinnakonda S. Gopinath, Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, (2012) Accepted
  • T. M. Sankaranarayanan, R. H. Ingle, T. B. Gaikwad, S. K. Lokhande, T. Raja, R. N. Devi, V. Ramaswamy, P. Manikandan.Ca tLett, vol. 121, no. 1, pp. 39-51, 2008
  • Darbha Srinivas; Wolfgang F Hoelderich; Steffen Kujath; Michael H Valkenberg; Thirumalaiswamy Raja; Lakshi Saikia; Ramona Hinze. (2008)
  • Active sites in vanadia/titania catalysts for selective aerial oxidation of 3-picoline to nicotinic acid. Journal of Catalysis 259 (2008) 165–173;21