Research Projects

The global challenge of providing clean and fresh drinking water is exacerbated by the rise in toxic pollutants from mining processes, poor water treatment facilities, and industrial activities. These pollutants accumulate in aquatic ecosystems, posing a threat to aquatic life and humans through the entire food chain. They also lead to water-borne diseases such as cancer, oxidative stress, and disorders of the central nervous system. To address this, sensitive detection and efficient removal of these contaminants are crucial for a sustainable future. Traditional methods for detecting water contamination have disadvantages such as trained manpower, time-consuming, and less cost-effectiveness. UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopy techniques can overcome these shortcomings. Zeolitic Imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) have emerged as a promising material due to their advantages such as easy and economical synthesis, high porosity, easy size modulation, and photo-catalytic properties. ZIFs have potential applications in water treatment, energy, sensing, drug delivery, and photo-catalysis. Covalently modified ZIFs with multianalyte probes for simultaneous detection, discrimination, and removal of inorganic and organic contaminants are rarely explored, but they could be an excellent choice for low-cost materials for water treatment.