About The Department

The history of the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Presidency University (erstwhile Presidency College) dates back to mid-nineteenth century. Over the years, a number of renowned and illustrious figures have been associated with the department as faculty and as students including Sir Alexander Pedler, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, Upendranath Brahmachari, Priyada Ranjan Ray, Pulin Behari Sarkar, Jogendra Chandra Bardhan, Suresh Chandra Sengupta, Jnanendra Nath Mukherjee, Pratul Chandra Rakshit and Mihir Chowdhury. The department has, to its credit, a long list of prestigious Bhatnagar awardees: Mihir Chaudhury, Amarnath Bhaduri, Debashis Mukherjee, Bhabatarak Bhattacharya, Biman Bagchi, Deb Sankar Roy, Kankan Bhattacharya, Siddhartha, Roy, Sumit Bhaduri, Uday Maitra and Tushar Chakraborty.

The Department offers three-year undergraduate courses both in Chemistry and Biochemistry (intake capacities: Chemistry – 42; Biochemistry – 10), and two-year postgraduate courses in Chemistry (intake capacity: 30). Class sizes are small providing a good deal of faculty-student interaction and academic flexibility. The diverse qualifications of the faculty ensure expertise in all the traditional subdisciplines of chemistry as well as in various interdisciplinary areas.

The department provides a nice intellectual environment for the curious and inventive youngsters. Faculty members are available as academic advisers and hold office hours for consultation about their courses; they are also willing to discuss chemistry, science, career opportunities, and even philosophy.

It was Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray who, not only set up a new and novel line in teaching chemistry but also paved the way for active and devoted researches in the field. A large number of students are now working for their Ph.D degree under the supervision of faculty members of the department. The research programs currently pursued mainly belong to the following areas: photochemistry, electron transfer and energy transfer processes, synthetic organic chemistry, bio-organic chemistry, electronic structure theory, protein structure and folding, polymer chemistry, polyelectrolyte chemistry, surface chemistry, surface active ionic liquids, nanocomposites, synthetic inorganic chemistry, analytical and environmental chemistry.

Due to the support of the University and the Chemistry faculty's continued success in attracting external research funding from various agencies including the Department of Scirnce & Technology, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, University Grants’ Commission, the department possesses a wide variety of modern instrumentation (e.g, FTIR Spectrophotometer, Time-resolved (nanosecond.picosecond) Spectrofluorimeter, Steady State Spectrofluorimeter, UV-VIS-NIR Spectrophotometer, CD Spectropolarimeter, Atomic Absorption Spectrometer, HPLC Systems, Chromatography System, Lyophilizer) and specialized softwares. It is currently a DST-FIST sponsored department. The ongoing research projects include:

• Studies towards the synthesis of biologically active natural and non-natural furoquinones, furo-macrolides and their thiophene analogs.
• Studies towards the synthesis of condensed heterocycles via alkynylation, arylation and olefination of α-halo-α,β-unsaturated aldehyde intermediates.
• Interactions between poly-electrolytes and surface active ionic liquids.
• Studies on structural perturbation, molecular dynamics simulation and chemical synthesis of lectin peptides and proteins.
• Folding and association of β-Sheet proteins: studies with oligomeric plant lectins.
• Characterization and evaluation of some plant polymeric gum as flame retardant and antioxidant additive for polymers.
• Photoinduced energy transfer, photophysical aspects, and docking studies of biomolecules and their interaction with other molecule.
• Photophysical aspects and photoinduced energy transfer/ electron transfer in ternary system consisting of two donors and one acceptor.
• Photophysical aspects and docking studies of bio-molecules with emphasis on photo induced energy transfer.
• Synthesis characterization and evaluation of some polymer nanocomposites based on nanodimensional polyvalent transition metal mixed oxides.
• Synthetic nanostructured agglomerates of mixed metal oxides: arsenic sorption behavior and mechanism in the presence of ions occurring in ground water.
• Polymer-inorganic hybrid nanocomposites (PIHNC)-preparation, characterization and their potential as nanodielectrics.
• Design consideration and field performance validation of high arsenic removal water filer packed with lab-bench developed material: A lab-to-field Technology transfer program.
• Studies on noble metal biomolecule complexes--their action on bacteria and tumor cells.
• The department boasts of phenomenal success rate of its students in different National and International level examinations. A large number of our students are placed as Research Scholars, Scientists and members of faculty in the premier Institutes in India and Institutes abroad.