Major Research Areas



We seek to correlate structural features with physical properties and to design synthetic strategies to prepare functional materials and to tune their structures and properties. We use synthetic methods from both inorganic and organic chemistry to prepare novel types of material and then use a wide variety of techniques to study their structure and properties. Using suitable organic ligands (predesigned by organic synthetic methods or commercially available ligands) we synthesis new self-assembled materials. Once the structure of new compound is determined by X-ray single crystal diffraction, the obtained bulk materials are characterized by different physical techniques that include powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA), elemental analysis, vibrational spectroscopy (IR), sorption, etc. The synthesized materials are used for functional studies like chemical separation, gas storage, magnetism, heterogeneous catalysis, conductivity, sensor etc.


Representative Publications and further reading:

Representative Publications based on Different types of Porous Materials:

1. Metal-organic Frameworks (MOFs):

Selective capture of toxic oxoanions of Se (VI) and As (V) with a rare crystallographic insight by a water stable ionic MOF

Shivani Sharma, Aamod V. Desai, Biplab Joarder, and Sujit K. Ghosh

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.  2020, 59, 7788. Web Link

2. Porous-organic Polymers (POPs):


Chemically Stable Ionic Viologen-Organic Network: An Efficient Scavenger of Toxic Oxo-anions from Water

Partha Samanta, Priyanshu Chandra, Subhajit Dutta, Aamod V. Desai and Sujit K. Ghosh

Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 7874–7881.Web Link

3. Metal-organic Polyhedra (MOPs):


Hydrophobic Shielding of Outer Surface: Enhancing the ChemicalStability of Metal–Organic Polyhedra

Samraj Mollick, Dr. Soumya Mukherjee, Dongwook Kim, Zhiwei Qiao, Aamod V. Desai, Rajat Saha, Yogeshwar D. More, Jianwen Jiang, Myoung Soo Lah and Sujit K. Ghosh

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, 58, 1041–1045. Web Link

4. Hydrogen-bonded Organic Frameworks (HOFs):


Hydrogen-Bonded Organic Frameworks: A New Class of Porous Crystalline Proton Conducting Materials

Avishek Karmakar, Rajith Illathvalappil, Bihag Anothumakkool, Arunabha Sen, Partha Samanta, Aamod V. Desai, Sreekumar Kurungot and Sujit K. Ghosh

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 10667-10671. Web Link

5. Porous Hybrid Composite Materials:

a) MOF@MOF Hybrid Composite Macroporous Materials:

Benchmark uranium extraction from seawater by an ionic macroporous metal-organic framework

Samraj Mollick, Satyam Saurabh, Yogeshwar D. More, Sahel Fajal, Mandar M. Shirolkar, Writakshi Mandal, Sujit K. Ghosh

Energy & Environmental Science 2022, Web Link


b) MOP@COF Hybrid Composite Materials:

Nanotrap Grafted Anion Exchangeable Hybrid Materials for Efficient Removal of Toxic Oxoanions from Water

Samraj Mollick, Sahel Fajal, Satyam Saurabh, Debanjan Mahato and Sujit K. Ghosh

ACS Cent. Sci.,2020, 6, 9, 1534–1541. Web Link


c) MOP@Gel Hybrid Composite Materials:

Trap Inlaid Cationic Hybrid Composite Material for Efficient Segregation of Toxic Chemicals from Water

Sahel Fajal, Writakshi Mandal, Samraj Mollick, Yogeshwer D. More, Arun Torris, Satyam Saurabh, Mandar M. Shirolkar, and Sujit K. Ghosh

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.  2022, DOI: 10.1002/anie.202203385. Web Link


d) Other Hybrid Composite Nanomaterials:

Hybrid blue perovskite@metal-organic gel (MOG) nanocomposite: simultaneous improvement of luminescence property and stability

Samraj Mollick, Tarak Nath Mandal, Atanu Jana, Sahel Fajal and Sujit K. Ghosh

Chemical Science, 2019, 10, 10524–10530. Web Link


Representative Publications based on different functional studies of Porous Materials

Advanced Functional Porous Materials for Safe Drinking Water: 

1. Luminescent MOFs for molecular recognition/sensing.


MOF as a chemical sensor has been employed for multiple applications like explosive detection, in vivo neurotransmitter sensing and ion recognition. Chemically stable Zr(IV) and carboxylate based porous fluorescent MOF with free Lewis basic functional groups (like amine, pyridyl ) has been developed for highly selective nitro explosive detection in aqueous phase. A bio-compatible Zr(IV) and carboxylate based MOF based turn-on probe for detection of gasotransmitter H2S in live cells has also been established in our lab. Several other fluorphore-based MOF probes are being studied for diverse sensing and detection purposes, accompanied with high selectivity and sensitivity. 


Representative Publications and further reading:



2. Sequestration of Environmentally Toxic (including radionuclides) Pollutants from Contaminated Water


A number of new cationic MOFs are being synthesized from N-donor based neutral linkers, which via intermediacy of anion exchange and fluorescence/IR based detection techniques, are being employed for selective anion recognition and detection phenomena. Interesting anion-responsive tunable luminescent properties have been the signature attributes for this class of compounds. These compounds have also been sought for the capture of toxic oxyanions in aqueous medium.  


Representative Publications and further reading:





Porous Material for Indutrially Relevent Gas/Solvent Separations: 

Industrially Relevant Hydrocarbons and CO2 Separation:

Separation of hydrocarbon species holds great importance in industrial applications. From the application-perspective, the separation of light hydrocarbons, especially those having related physical properties and similar molecular sizes is highly challenging for industrial applications. Adsorption-based separation seems the best alternative against the expensive and energy-intensive azeotropic and extractive distillation methods for achieving such separation. In our lab, functional MOFs are being designed and developed for the separation of industrially relevent hydrocarcons sepations including Benzene/cylohexane, o/m/p-xylenes, C2H2/CO2, C2H2/C2H4, C2H4/C2H6, C3H4/C3H6, and C3H6/C3H8 etc. 


Representative Publications and further reading:


Material for Clean Energy: 

Uranium extraction from seawater (UES) : Source of clean and renewable energy 


Samraj Mollick, Satyam Saurabh, Yogeshwar D. More, Sahel Fajal, Mandar M. Shirolkar, Writakshi Mandal, Sujit K. Ghosh

Energy & Environmental Science 2022,15, 3462-3469. Web Link

Media Coverages: India Today, Nature India For More: Click here.

Small 2023, 2302014. Web Link  



Fuel Cell Membrane Materials


Fuel cells have shown great potential to produce energy in higher efficiencies with no environmental pollution. H+ and OH-conduction properties of MOFs evolved as an outcome of some design-principle, coupled with those subsequent to post-synthetic modification (PSM) are currently being studied for intriguing revelation of high proton conductivity and chemical stability features in both anhydrous and humidified conditions. 


Representative Publications and further reading:



Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs)  


Representative Publications:


Yogeshwar D. More, Satyam Saurabh, Samraj Mollick, Sachin Kumar Singh, Subhajit Dutta, Sahel Fajal, Anil Prathamshetti, Mandar M. Shirolkar, Suresh Panchal, Minal Wable, Satishchandra Ogale and Sujit K. Ghosh

Adv. Mater. Interfaces 2022, 2201713. Web Link




Heterogeneous catalysis:

Heterogeneous catalysis based on functional advanced porous materials. 

Representative Publications:


ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2024, XXXX Web Link 

J. Org. Chem. 2022, 87, 24, 16655–16664  Web Link 

ACS Appl. Nano Mater., 2019, 2, 1333-1340 Web Link. 

Magnetic Materials


Single molecule magnets (SMMs) and Single chain magnets (SCMs) have been regarded as important classes of compounds, derived from coordination chemistry-aided apposite design principles.  Stemming from chelating ligands, mostly oxygen-donors as well as, mixed (N- and O- donating) schiff base linkers, coupled with oxophilic lanthanide ions having large unquenched orbital angular momentum, an overall increase in the magnetic anisotropy values for the concerned Ln(III) homometallic/ 3d-4f heterometallic complexes are manifested. These lead to slow magnetic relaxation guided SMM behaviours of these complexes. Also we are currently pursuing the development of materials which can respond to magnetic stimulus. Such compounds exhibiting spin transitions on application of external fields are promising candidates for several important applications. 


Representative Publications and further reading: