Rate My Professor Neelkanth Nirmalkar

Neelkanth Nirmalkar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar, where he has been serving since 2019, initially as an Assistant Professor before his promotion in 2024. He obtained his B.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Raipur, and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 2014. Prior to joining IIT Ropar, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. His academic and professional trajectory underscores a commitment to advancing chemical engineering through rigorous research and teaching.

Nirmalkar's research focuses on non-Newtonian fluid mechanics and heat transfer in multiphase flows, encompassing complex fluids, heat transfer in nanofluids and phase change materials, and the stability of bulk nanobubbles for applications in mineral processing and water treatment. He also explores the formulation of conductive inks, aerogels, ionic liquids, phase change materials, carbon nanofibers and nanotubes, and fabrication of hydrophobic nanomembranes. He has received the DST INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship and served as a visiting faculty at West Pomeranian University of Technology, Poland. With 69 journal articles, one book chapter, one conference proceeding, and one review, his work has garnered over 1,500 citations and an h-index of 22. Notable publications include "Does Salting-Out Effect Nucleate Nanobubbles in Water: Spontaneous Nucleation?" (Ultrasonics Sonochemistry, 2022), "Novel strategies to enhance hydrodynamic cavitation in a circular venturi using RANS numerical simulations" (Water Research, 2021), "Bulk nanobubbles from acoustically cavitated aqueous organic solvent mixtures" (Langmuir, 2019), "Interpreting the interfacial and colloidal stability of bulk nanobubbles" (Soft Matter, 2018), and "On the existence and stability of bulk nanobubbles" (Langmuir, 2018). He holds an Indian patent for a "Device for nanobubble generation" (Application No. 202111005491).