Prof. Sudipta Seal is an eminent scientist, entrepreneur and a distinguished professor who was honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award 2018 by IIT Kharagpur in the 64th Convocation of the Institute. Recently, he revisited his Alma Mater after a gap of many years to take a walk down the memory lane, reminiscing his college days and reuniting with his mentors and professors. While visiting his department and his hall, he sank into the depths of memorabilia and the evergreen nostalgic pages of his life. He was bestowed with Distinguished Alumnus Award which he was unable to collect previously, by Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur in the august presence of Prof. Amit Patra, Deputy Director; Prof. Krishna Kumar, Dean FoS; Prof. P K Dutta, Dean FoID & BTBS; Prof. Saibal Gupta, Associate Dean, Faculty of Sciences (FoS); Prof. Sujit Kumar Dash, Associate Dean, FoE&A; Prof. Debashish Chakravarty, Associate Dean International Ranking & Alumni Affairs and Captain Amit Jain (Retd.), Registrar, IIT Kharagpur.
He is currently the chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, as well as a Pegasus Professor and University Distinguished Professor at the University of Central Florida (UFC). Prof. Seal joined the Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center at UCF in 1997. He has been consistently productive in research, instruction and service to UCF since 1998. He has served as the Nano Initiative Coordinator for the Vice President of Research and Commercialization. He served as the Director of Advanced Materials Processing Analysis Centre (AMPAC), NanoScience Technology Center (NSTC), UCF College of Medicine, University of Central Florida, USA.
Prof. Seal completed his B.Tech in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in 1990 and won the Institute Blue for outstanding performance in sports and games at IIT Kharagpur. He did his M.Met from the University of Sheffield, UK and PhD in Material Science and Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Milwauke, USA in 1996.
Prof. Seals’ outstanding research has developed surface engineered nanoscale transition metal and rare-earth oxide ceramics for catalysis, energetics and nano-biomedicine. He has developed the patented scalable methods for template nano-oxide particles. He engineered nanoceria (3-5 nm) with switchable valence states with regeneration capability. Using a similar concept, his team developed spherical nano-ZrO2 ceramics without doping with metastable tetragonal crystal structure and explained for the first time the reduced activation energy for grain growth in nano binary oxides.
He discovered the antioxidant properties of nanoceria by controlling defect chemistry and has created a unique field in inorganice nano-antioxidants for medicine. He believes that the unique structure of nano-particles with respect to valence and oxygen defects, promotes cell longevity scavenging super-oxide radicals produced in excess in cellular matrix and regenerate stem cell. This research is immensely significant for both cancer therapy and glaucoma.
“Material Science and Engineering has become an important interdisciplinary field and I feel this because I am associated with it like in computation materials and lunar surfaces. We at UFC hire mainly in strategic directions, now there are 6 of them, one is cybersonic, another is energy, then space mining for space centre etc. We are surrounded by large companies including Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi Power Corporations and Siemens. Currently, we are looking at start-ups and space sciences. Being in IIT KGP has been one of the greatest joys and a timeless experience. I still remember my time, when I was in the RK hall. While visiting the hall again, I felt a plethora of emotions that this place shares with me. KGP ka tempo high rahe”
Prof. Seal has also developed multi-functional nanomaterial additives for aerospace nanoenergetics and his research in power plant fly ash waste has created unique chemistry of ash particles with nano structures that can be used to clean up oil spills.
The academic units that Dr. Seal overseas are continuously creating new inventions and technology at UFC. Dr. Seal has published more than 400 journal papers, book chapters, and three books on nanotechnology. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Materials, American Association of Advancement of Science, American Vacumm Society, Institute of Nanotechnology-UK, National Academy of Inventors, Electrochemical Society and the American Institute of Medical & Biological Engineering.
Prof. Seal has won the prestigious Schwartz Tech Award and was recently elected to the World Academy of Ceramics. He hold 48 US patents and his technology is licensed to multiple companies, many of them start-ups such as nSolGellnc, nTiOX, NanoCelLC and Helicon.
Inputs by: Anamika Das, Executive, Office of the Alumni Affairs
Email: deanfoea@iitkgp.ac.in; vcjee1@adm.iitkgp.ac.in; Ph. No: +91-3222-281860
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The research team has now developed a more advanced version of COVIRAP using a step-wise isothermal nucleic acid testing technology for the rapid diagnostics of pathogenic infections including SARS-CoV-2 in individuals. The COVID-19 diagnostic test can be conducted directly from human swab samples in the portable device developed by the team, without requiring any separate facility for RNA extraction. The results can be made available within 45 minutes of obtaining the patient sample. The kit has also been also supplemented with a free smartphone app to facilitate unambiguous results interpretation and automated dissemination to the patients. 
There have been many tales of Paan – in songs, history and literature, religion and culture for many millennia, across hierarchies of society, in South and South-East Asia. While the use of Paan as a mouth freshener is under the radar of health agencies for carcinogenic effects, however, the main component, i.e. Betel Leaf stays clear of health concerns. Rather it is considered beneficial in terms of digestion, stimulation of senses and fresh breath due to the presence of antimicrobial and antioxidant-rich essential oil.
Describing the equipment, Prof. Guha said, “It is a distillation unit with special modifications for recycling evaporated water which carries the vapors of essential oil from the distillation flask to the condensation unit. It has also a special device to minimize the formation of emulsion for increasing the recovery of essential oil.”
India produces betel leaves worth ₹ 9 billion per year grossing as the largest producer of betel leaf in the world. However, achieving profitability remains a crucial challenge as a minimum of 10% of the produce is wasted every year and a large portion remains unsold or sold at throwaway prices during the glut season.