Indian Institute of Technology – Madras

Ramesh Gardas was born and brought up in Surat, Gujarat. He completed B.Sc. (Chemistry) with First Class from P.T. Sarvajanik College of Science, Surat (Gujarat) in 1998 and M.Sc. (Physical Chemistry) with First Class from Department of Chemistry, South Gujarat University, Surat in 2000. He has been awarded the Ph.D. degree in Chemistry in 2004 by the Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, India, for his work on thermodynamic studies of nonelectrolyte binary and ternary liquid mixtures under the supervision of Professor S.L. Oswal. Then, he joined the research group of Professor Abel Ferreira and Professor Isabel Fonseca at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, for his first postdoc research on PVT data of pure and binary liquid mixtures. Later in 2006, he joined PATh, University of Aveiro, Portugal, to work with Professor Joao Coutinho and Professor Isabel Marrucho. His second postdoc at PATh was on water solubility, octanol-water partition coefficients, and thermophysical properties prediction of ionic liquids. Then, in May 2008, he moved to Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK, and joined the QUILL Research Team to work with Professor Chris Hardacre and Professor David Rooney for his third postdoc on a confidential project sponsored by Petronas, Malaysia. Research experience from PATh and QUILL improved his knowledge of ionic liquids and more precisely their physico-chemical properties and applications.

He joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, in August 2010, and currently he is an Associate Professor in Chemistry Department. He has more than 19-years of research and 10-years of teaching experience. He is a co-author of 4 patents, 2 book chapters and 160 research papers which have been published in international journals having a good impact factor and received more than 5500 citations with h-index = 36 and average citations per paper of above 34.

Dr. Ramesh Gardas’ research group focusses on ‘Chemical Thermodynamics’ and ‘Phase Equilibria’ of industrially important solvents and their mixtures. His research interests include synthesis and physico-chemical properties of novel, non-conventional and environmentally benign solvents (e.g. ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents) and their mixtures with conventional solvents for an in-depth understanding of solute-solvent interactions and also to develop their structure-composition-property correlations.Presently, his group strives to design the task-specific ionic liquids and to provide an important insight into physical chemistry to regulate their properties for varied technological applications such as phase change materials, CO2 capturing, dissolution of tank bottom sludge, stabilization of proteins, electrolytes in solar cell and super capacitors, absorbents for refrigeration system, desulfurization of fuels, and also extraction of metal ions, biomolecules and value-added products.