FTMC PhD Student Aswathi Raveendran Recognised for an Innovative Wastewater Treatment Idea at an International Nanomaterials Conference

Aswathi Raveendran, a PhD student at the FTMC Department of Electrochemical Materials Science, received an award for the Best Poster Presentation at the international conference “Nanomaterials: Applications & Properties” in Montenegro.

The topic of Aswathi’s presentation was “Role of Amino Acids in Tailoring the Magnetism of CoFe₂O₄ Nanoparticles”. According to the PhD student, this research is highly relevant to everyday life.

“We synthesize and investigate cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (CFO) to develop magnetically retrievable adsorbents – pollutant-capturing materials – for wastewater remediation.

While CFO nanoparticles are widely utilized in biomedical, electronic, and catalytic applications, our research focuses specifically on how amino acid surfactant (surface-active agent) functionalization controls particle size, morphology, and chemical composition during synthesis.

By optimizing these synthetic parameters, we engineer nanoparticles with well-defined intrinsic magnetic properties and high surface areas, enabling the fabrication of robust composites designed to adsorb (i.e. capture) organic pollutants. Crucially, this approach solves a primary limitation in conventional wastewater treatment, which is secondary pollution caused by residual treatment chemicals, by facilitating the complete and rapid recovery of the adsorbent via an external magnetic field,” explains Raveendran.

The award recipient expresses her gratitude to her academic supervisor, Dr Simonas Ramanavičius, for his support throughout the project, and to the Research Council of Lithuania for funding this academic trip.

The conference was organised by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, USA). Its main focus was on nanometre-scale materials, particularly interdisciplinary research aimed at exploring and applying the unique physical and chemical properties of these materials in practice.

Source: FTMC