“As the major portion of the fossil fuels that we have been depending upon now will exhaust in the next 30 or 40 years, we have to look for alternatives. In this context, Hydrogen will be the fuel of future. But how do you produce, store and transport hydrogen in large scales is the million dollar question. Chemists worldwide are trying to find an answer to this,” said IISC (Bangalore) Honorary Professor (dept of organic chemistry), Dr Srinivasan Chandrasekharan.
He was delivering his inaugural address at a two-day national seminar on ‘Modern methods in chemistry,’ organised by Department of Chemistry, St Aloysius college here on Thursday.
Dr Chandrashekaran said that chemistry is partly responsible for the pollution worldwide. Hence, chemistry needs to be different from what it has been till now. Here comes the concept of 'green chemistry’ or safe chemistry. Green chemistry means the same chemistry but doing the experiment or producing chemicals in a different way. A way less harmful to the environment, he stressed. “For example, if we are replacing harmful or toxic solvents with less toxic ones, we can make a change,” he explained.
The IISC professor called upon chemistry teachers to inculcate the message of green chemistry among the students right from the beginning to do away with the negative ‘pollutant’ image of chemistry which is rampant in society.
He noted that handling the need for energy and eco-concern would be the main challenges before chemistry tomorrow.
College Principal Fr Swebert D'Silva presided over. Vice Pricipal Ronald Pinto, Rajgopal Bhat and Richard Gonsalves among others also spoke.
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