Dr Amit Kumar
Principal Research Fellow
Biography
Amit completed his Integrated M.Sc. Chemistry (2007-2012) from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal for academic excellence and won several fellowships/research awards by DAAD, IIT-ParisTech, KVPY and INSPIRE (Govt of India) and Indian Academy of Science. He then won a Rhodes Scholarship for his DPhil research at the University of Oxford (Balliol College). During his DPhil (2012-2016) he worked under the guidance of Prof. Andrew Weller in the area of synthetic organometallic chemistry and developed rhodium and iridium catalysts for the dehydrocoupling of amine-boranes. After completing his DPhil studies, Dr. Kumar was awarded the PBC (Planning and Budgeting Committee, Israel, 2016-2019) fellowship to work with Prof. David Milstein at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel where he was promoted to be the Senior Postdoc Fellow in 2019. In the Milstein research group Dr. Kumar developed new pincer catalysts for small molecule activation and for the development of green and sustainable homogeneous catalysis based on dehydrogenation and hydrogenation reactions. Amit was awarded the FGS (Feinberg Graduate School) Prize for the outstanding achievements in postdoctoral research 2018 by the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Amit started his independent academic career in Jan 2020 as a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the School of Chemistry, University of St. Andrews. Since Aug 2022 he is working as a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in the areas of homogeneous catalysis, polymer chemistry, and circular economy.
Research areas
Catalysis plays a major role in the production of food, pharmaceuticals, and energy. Kumar Research Laboratory (KuRLa) is striving in the area of green homogeneous catalysis to contribute to a circular eocnomy. The lab is working on the development of new sustainable catalytic processes for the synthesis of renewable polymers and depolymerisation of plastic waste as well as for the transformation of CO2 to useful chemicals/materials. A significant effort is also being made towards the development of new chemical hydrogen storage materials, preferably a renewable liquid of high gravimetric storage capacity. For more information see the group website: https://kumarresearchlab.com/
PhD supervision
- Garima .
- James Luk
- Chandrika Ghosh
- Julian Kolb
Selected publications
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Catalytic depolymerization of plastic waste
Espinosa-Jalapa, N. E. & Kumar, A., 15 Feb 2024, Catalysis for a sustainable environment: reactions, processes and applied technologies. Pombeiro, A. J. L., Sutradhar, M. & Alegria, E. C. B. A. (eds.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, Vol. 2. p. 339-368 30 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Open access
Direct chemoselective reduction of plant oils using silane catalysed by Rh(iii) complexes at ambient temperature
P.-Pascual, U., Bustos, I., Freixa, Z., Kumar, A. & Huertos, M., 21 Feb 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: RSC Sustainability. Advance Article, 6 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Direct synthesis of partially ethoxylated branched polyethylenimine from ethanolamine
Brodie, C. N., Goodfellow, A. S., Andrews, M., Owen, A. E., Buehl, M. & Kumar, A., 24 Jul 2024, In: Nature Communications. 15, 9 p., 6253.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Indole clubbed 2,4-thiazolidinedione linked 1,2,3-triazole as a potent antimalarial and antibacterial agent against drug-resistant strain and molecular modeling studies
Upadhyay, D. B., Mokariya, J. A., Patel, P. J., Patel, S. G., Das, A., Nandi, A., Nogales, J., More, N., Kumar, A., Rajani, D. P., Narayan, M., Kumar, J., Banerjee, S., Sahoo, S. K. & Patel, H. M., 21 Jan 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Archiv der Pharmazie. Early View, e2300673.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Manganese-catalysed synthesis of polyketones using hydrogen-borrowing approach
Kulyabin, P., Magdysyuk, O., Naden, A. B., Dawson, D. M., Pancholi, K., Walker, M., Vassalli, M. & Kumar, A., 28 Jun 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: ACS Catalysis. ASAP, p. 10624–10634Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Manganese-catalyzed hydrogenation of amides and polyurethanes: is catalyst inhibition an additional barrier to efficient hydrogenation of amides and their derivatives?
Luk, J., Oates, C., Fuentes, J. A., Clarke, M. & Kumar, A., 9 Jan 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Organometallics. Articles ASAP, 9 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Reformation of alcohols to esters, acids, amides, ureas, polyureas and polyethyleneimine by 3d-metal
Brodie, C. N. & Kumar, A., 7 Jan 2024, Dehydrogenation reactions with 3d metals . Sundararaju, B. (ed.). Cham: Springer, p. 227-255 29 p. (Topics in organometallic chemistry; vol. 73).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Open access
Manganese catalysed dehydrogenative synthesis of polyureas from diformamide and diamines
McLuskie, A., Brodie, C. N., Tricarico, M., Gao, C., Peters, G., Naden, A. B., Mackay, C. L., Tan, J.-C. & Kumar, A., 21 Jun 2023, In: Catalysis Science & Technology. 13, 12, p. 3551-3557 7 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Predicting ruthenium catalysed hydrogenation of esters using machine learning
Mishra, C., Wolff, N. V., Tripathi, A., Brodie, C. N., Lawrence, N. D., Ravuri, A., Brémond, É., Preiss, A. & Kumar, A., 1 Jun 2023, In: Digital Discovery. 2, 3, p. 819-827 9 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Synthesis of polyethyleneimines from the manganese‐catalysed coupling of ethylene glycol and ethylenediamine
Brodie, C. N., Owen, A. E., Kolb, J. S., Buehl, M. & Kumar, A., 17 Jul 2023, In: Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 62, 29, 8 p., e202306655.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review