Professor Pulickel Ajayan who hails from Kerala can be called a wizard in the field of nanotechnology. He is armed with the darkest material and the smallest brush. He got into the Guinness Book of World Records twice for these.
The darkest material is out of the wizard book literally – a carpet that reflects only 0.045 per cent of light. It’s made of carbon nano-tubes.
Have you heard about the paper battery? This was also the creation of this Professor from Rice University, Houston. The paper battery grabbed the limelight in August 2007. This is basically an energy storage device on a piece of paper.
Pulickel Ajayan has 400 papers on carbon nanostructures. He is concerned about the environment and in 2012, came up with a hybrid material which could remove contaminants from water. He also developed a green battery made of lithium-ion cathode which is environment friendly.
He is currently working on how nanotechnology can be effectively used for energy storage devices.
Prof. Ajayan has won several awards and is on the advisory editorial board of several leading journals. He is also a board member of many nanotechnology companies. He is a visiting professor in many international universities too.
Picture credit: Google