RESUME OF S. RAJA


Name	S. Raja
Address	Room No. 132, Krishna Hostel, Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai 600 036, Tamil Nadu, India.
email	[email protected] [email protected]
Programme	Institute	Period	Courses taken
Ph. D., Polymer Science (Thesis Title: Synthesis and Characterization of Functional Polystyrenes and Some Application Development Studies.)	Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India.	1998-till date	Chemistry of Macromolecules, Synthetic Methodology in Organic Chemistry, Organometallics for Organic synthesis, Surface chemistry, Application of Physical Methods in Chemistry.
M. Sc., Chemistry	V.O.C. College, Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, India.	1994 - 1996	Physical, Organic, Inorganic Chemistry.
B. Sc., Chemistry	V.O.C. College, Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, India	1991 - 1994	Physical, Organic, Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry.
Distinctions	GATE 2000 (All India Masters Level Chemistry Test; qualified with percentile of 99.38; All India 12th Rank)

Publications

S. Raja and R. Dhamodharan (2001). Synthesis and Characterization of Nitroglycerine-Functionalized Polystyrene. J. Polym. SciA: Polym.Chem. 39, 1203-1215.

S. Raja and R. Dhamodharan (2002). Synthesis and Characterization of Water-Soluble Barbiturate and Thiobarbiturate-Functionalized Polystyrene., J. Polym. SciA: Polym.Chem. 40, 731 � 737.

S. Raja and R. Dhamodharan, High Degree of Crystallographic Association and Reversible Response to Certain Stimuli in Synthetic Stereo-Irregular Macromolecules with Barbituric and Thiobarbituric Acid Pendant Group Macromolecules.

Mohammed J. Nasrullah, S. Raja, K. Vijayakumaran, and R. Dhamodharan. (2000). A Practical Route to the Preparation of Poly(4-Vinylphenol) - A Useful Photoresist Material. J. Polym. SciA: Polym.Chem., 38, 453-461.

S. Raja and R. Dhamodharan, Synthesis and Characterization of a Novel, Water-soluble Polymer with cis-Platinum Chelated Pendant Groups. J. Macromolecular Science: Pure and Applied Chemistry, Communicated

S. Raja and R. Dhamodharan, Large Scale Ordering of Fully Amorphous Polystyrene via Pendant Substitution with Hydrogen Bonding Motifs, J. Polym. SciB: Polym.physics, Communicated

S. Raja, J. M. Nasrullah and R. Dhamodharan, Synthesis of Novel Functional-Polymers by the Chemical Modification of Polystyrene and the Demonstration of Selected Applications. 5. �sterreichische Polymertage Leoben, Austria, September 12th to 14th, 2001, pp 234-238.

S. Raja and R. Dhamodharan Presented at the Water-Soluble Barbiturate and Thiobarbiturate Functionalized Polystyrenes- Synthesis and Fluorescence Studies, 4th International Petroleum Conference and Exhibition-PETROTECH � 2001, New Delhi.

S. Raja, J. Mohammed Nasrullah, V. R. K. Murthy and R. Dhamodharan. Fabrication of Copper Clad PTFE Laminates for Microwave Device Fabrication and Testing. Tenth National Seminar on Ferroelectrics and Dielectrics, held at IIT Madras during Dec. 16-18, 1998.

S. Raja and R. Dhamodharan, Synthesis and Characteization of Polystyrene based High energy Material. Presented at the �Symposium on Polymers and Composites - Macro 2000� held between December 1-3, 2000 at DMSRDE, Kanpur.

Experience and Skill

I have been working in Polymer Modification for the past five years and I have gained considerable experience in handling this technique.

I have also gained experience in the following characterization techniques and have handled them independently: GPC (Shimadzu VT 10A Series with UV and RID-2AS detector), FT-IR (JASCO FT-IR 410) with accessories Horizontal ATR-IR (HATR) and Diffused Reflectance Technique (DRIFT), NMR (Hitachi 60 MHz, UV-VIS Spectroscopy (JASCO UV-V 530 and Shimadzu UV 240), Glove Box (mBraun), TGA (Mettler Toledo STARe) .

I have also gained experience of handling karl-Susi machine for lithography studies.

DSC, WAXS, Atomic Force Microscopy, Optical Microscopy were also used for the characterization studies I have undertaken.

I am also familiar with Windows 98, ChemOffice, MS-Office, Microcal Origin 6.0.

ABSTRACT OF RESEARCH WORK

Specifically functionalized polymers are important in application development such as photoresists, smart polymers, nanotubes, molecular imprinting, smart gels and DNA microchips. Polymers for these purposes can be synthesized by a variety of polymer synthetic methods. Among these methods, the chemical modification of polymers is a more versatile tool as it can enable an unprecedented variation of copolymer composition and thus a fine control over polymer properties. Polystyrene is a consumer plastic that is produced in very high volume, and polystyrene based materials are used in a range of applications from chromatography columns, Merrifield resin, tissue-culture plates, ion-exchange resins and many others.

With a view to demonstrate the potential of polymer modification in achieving a delicate control over polymer properties and to illustrate the specific role of certain functionality on the properties of polystyrene (and therefore enhance the suitability of polystyrene in more commercial applications) some chemical modifications of polystyrene were carried out. Thus several functional groups such as glycerol, trinitroglycerol, barbituric acid, thiobarbituric acid, sulphonic acid and a cis-platinum complex were introduced via chemical modification reactions and the resulting polymers were characterized by typical polymer characterization methods.

It was observed that atactic polystyrene (which has no distinct morphology in the solid state) with the barbituric and thiobarbituric acid functionality (BAPS and TBAPS) organized well in the solid state as determined by temperature dependent WAXRD. Distinct organization in the solution phase was also observed via fluorescence microscopy. A reversible order to disorder transition was observed in solution with variations in temperature, solvent, ionic strength and certain transition metal ions. These properties are typical of smart polymers. The introduction of barbituric and thiobarbituric acid groups resulted in a resin with a high capacity (compared to the best available commercial resin) for reversible metal ion chelation and an enhanced thermal stability. In general with the introduction of the functional groups enhanced thermal stability, dual photoresist capability, and several other properties are attained.

Last Updated on July 24, 2003
Best Viewed in Resolution 800 * 600
Copyright : Dr. Dhamodharan Group

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws