PCHC synthesis
Recorded in the group's laboratory at the Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras. Carbon dioxide, an abundant and non-toxic C1 feedstock, becomes the backbone of an aliphatic polycarbonate.
Department of Chemistry · IIT Madras
Organometallics for a post-petroleum polymer economy.
We design organometallic and metal-free catalysts that convert cyclic esters, epoxides and captured CO₂ into biodegradable, recyclable polymers — and we train the chemists who will scale them.
124Publications
16Patents
15Ph.D. guided
8Funded projects
Principal Investigator
Prof. Debashis Chakraborty
Professor Debashis Chakraborty was awarded Dr.rer.nat. from the University of Göttingen in 2000 under the mentorship of Professor Dr. Dr. h.c.mult. Herbert W. Roesky. He pursued his initial postdoctoral career at the University of Idaho in the area of Fluorine Chemistry. After about a year he moved over as a joint postdoctoral researcher between Colorado State University and the Dow Chemical Company. He returned to India in 2003 and worked as a corporate research Group Leader in two prime pharmaceutical companies before joining as a faculty in the Department of Chemistry at Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 2005. The Organometallics and Polymer Chemistry group is headed by him. The major research focus of this group lies in the areas of organometallics for polymer synthesis, homogeneous catalysis, CO₂ sequestration, wealth from waste and water activation.
AFIChemE · FIAAM · FSFRC · FICS · MIScT · CSci
The problem we work on
Plastics that do not outlive their purpose.
Petroleum-derived plastics persist for centuries and carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere. Our group treats both as a single catalysis problem: build the metal center and ligand environment precisely enough, and waste streams become feedstocks.
01
Ring-Opening Polymerization
Transition-metal organometallics and simple metal salts as catalysts for the ROP of cyclic esters and lactides, resolving how ancillary ligands on the metal center govern polymerization behavior and tacticity.
Read more → 02Metal-Free Catalysis
Phosphorus(V) compounds as metal-free initiators for cyclic ester and lactide polymerization — removing metal residues from biomedical-grade polyesters.
Read more → 03CO₂ Sequestration & Utilization
Ring-opening copolymerization of epoxides with CO₂ and with cyclic anhydrides, converting a waste greenhouse gas into aliphatic polycarbonates.
Read more → 04Olefin Polymerization
Design and synthesis of new non-metallocene pre-catalysts for olefin polymerization, extending control over polymer architecture.
Read more → 05Wealth From Waste
L/D-lactide recovered from bio-derived lactic acid sourced from food waste, closing the loop between waste streams and biodegradable plastics.
Read more → 06Biodegradable Polymers in Medicine
Polyester carriers and biogenic metal nanoparticles developed for drug delivery, in collaboration with biotechnology groups.
Read more →Inside the laboratory
Synthesis, characterization, and the slow work of control.
Air-sensitive organometallic synthesis, polymerization kinetics and full structural characterization, carried out in the Department of Chemistry at IIT Madras.
From the bench
Watch the chemistry happen.
Poly(cyclohexene carbonate) forming by the ring-opening copolymerization of cyclohexene oxide with carbon dioxide — the reaction at the center of our CO₂ utilization work.
Recent work
Latest from the group.
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124
Ruthenium based organometallic catalysts for CO₂ hydrogenation: a decade update
Inorg. Chim.Acta 2026, 597, 123154.
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123
Chiral Proline-derived Zn(II) Complexes as Catalysts for Ring-Opening Polymerization and Ring-Opening Copolymerization Reactions
Polym. Chem. 2026, 17, 758-769.
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122
Efficient and Controlled Ring-Opening Copolymerization of Cyclohexene Oxide with Cyclic Anhydrides Catalyzed by Proline-based Chiral Alkyl Al(III) Compounds
Faraday Discuss, 2026, 262, 191–211.
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121
Salen Derivatives of Zr(IV) as Efficient Catalysts for the Ring-Opening Copolymerization of Epoxides with Anhydrides
Eur. J. Inorg Chem. 2026, 0, e202500510.
In the press
Join the group.
We take doctoral and master's students with a background in inorganic, organometallic or polymer chemistry, and welcome collaboration on catalysis for sustainable materials.