Research

Current Research:

Environmental Remediation: The development of science and technology has profoundly impacted the environment. Soil and water pollution are primarily related to releasing untreated wastewater into lakes and rivers. Several industries extensively use organic dyes, such as food and drug manufacturing, textile, paper, pigment, leather, and cosmetics. Eventually, these dyes end up in the water body due to discharge. Most of such dyes and their metabolites are toxic and carcinogenic and tend to contaminate water, endanger public health, and harm the ecosystem.
Baruah Laboratory research focuses on fabricating nanostructured metal oxide decorated with plasmonic metal nanoparticles to create binary composite materials. We assess the photocatalytic degradation of water-soluble model pollutant dye molecules in the presence of the fabricated composite materials (photocatalyst) under UV and visible light.      

SERS Detection: Baruah Laboratory is also interested in detecting toxins or pollutants at sub-micromolar and sub-nanomolar concentrations. Baruah group researchers design and fabricate gold and silver nanoparticles based on SERS substrates to detect toxins and contaminants.

Corrosion Preventive Coating for Al-alloy: Aluminum alloy is among the most widely used materials in automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, military hardware, household appliances, and beverage can fields. Metal naturally tends to react with atmospheric oxygen and return to its stable oxide form - corrosion. A coating is a widely accepted remedy to prevent alloys. Baruah Laboratory is interested in developing robust coating to protect against Al-alloy corrosion.

Transparent Wood and Future Applications: This research aims to create modified wood material with multiple properties such as flexibility, optical transparency, and electrical conductivity. In modern society, electronic devices are an indispensable part of every arena of our life. We modify natural wood (NW) to transparent and flexible wood to find possible applications in sensors, energy storage devices, and flexible electronics.

Current Undergraduate Research Students:

• Ridham Raval
• Rohan Bhatia
• Gracie Smith
• Mia Santillan

Masters Student:

• Ian Danquah

Former MS students:

• Daniel A. Corella (Development Chemist at Birla Carbon)
• William A. Mendez Gil
• Latanya Downer (Quality Control Analyst - Mikart)
• Grayson Phillips (CDC)

The Baruah Laboratory acknowledges generous support from the following organizations.