The winner of the ISSN Awardee, Dr Girivyankatesh Hippargi, has 21 years of diversified knowledge and experience in the field of chemistry, including materials, environmental, analytical and organic chemistry. Dr Hippargi is among a few countable people who, despite suffering from severe hearing disabilities, choose chemistry as a career option, fought several drawbacks and proved his excellency in this field.
His first appointment was in the ISO and cGMP certified Private chemical industry, where he worked on the floor to synthesize and analysis of organic molecules. Later, he moved to the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali, Punjab (An autonomous body under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers), where he worked on various industrial R & D projects and filed four patents.
In 2011, he joined ‘Environmental Materials Division’ of ‘CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). He is working on the R & D of materials and their transformation into products for use in different devices and processes, along with additional responsibility for analytical instrumentation. During this tenure, he was part of various R & D projects sponsored by different agencies (In-house projects/CSIR Networking projects/DST/MEFCC/Technical services/ private industry). He developed several materials, including nano-materials, metal-doped/deposited metal oxides, mixed oxides, biomaterials, and MOF for applications such as photocatalysis, thermal catalysis, adsorbent, solar energy, water purification, air purification and pyrotechnics. He was part of the team who invented green crackers in India. Today, this technology of the green cracker transferred to more than 800 fireworks industries. During his research journey, he has published nineteen research publications in prestigious high-impact factor international SCI journals (cumulative impact factor of more than 115), two book chapters, filed nine patents and bagged several awards individually as well as group (Best Technical Officer Award twice in 2016 and 2020, ISSN Awards, Best Division Award and CSIR-Technology Award in Physical Sciences-2021 through hands of honourable Vice President of India Shri. Venkaiah Naidu Ji). Apart from contributing to several R & D projects, he was instrumental in setting up state-of-the-art sophisticated analytical instrumentation facilities, including the procurement/installation of several instruments, which has benefited research scholars of CSIR-NEERI. In addition to this, Dr. Hippargi is In-charge of several instrumentation facilities, including SEM, GC, GCMS, UHPLC, Nanosizer, XRD, and UV-Visible-NIR-DRS.
His current focus is on industry-oriented design and development with an emphasis on new product ideas/novel materials and processes, modification of existing products/processes for yield improvement and/or cost reduction and testing and monitoring hazardous chemicals in different environmental matrices. This expertise and knowledge in chemical science provide direct and indirect support to several research scholars.
