Dr Manjula Nair

Assistant Professor

Role
Assistant Professor
Section
School of Engineering & Physical Sciences
Email
Manjula Nair

About

Dr. Nair teaches Chemistry courses for the Chemical Engineering cohort. She is the coordinator for Years 1 & 2 and the local course leader for the Principles of Chemistry, Chemical Reactivity and Chemical Thermodynamics programmes. 

She also supervises the research projects for Chemical Engineering and Masters students. 

Biography

Dr. Nair started her career teaching Chemistry at Undergraduate level at Mumbai University. Prior to joining Heriot Watt, she was Head of the Chemistry department at the branch campus of Southern New Hampshire University, Dubai and was teaching chemistry courses in collaboration with SNHU and Florida Atlantic University.  

Dr.Nair has also conducted summer courses in Chemistry for transfer students from various U.S universities like Purdue, Ohio State University, University of North Carolina and University of Oregon, to name a few. Additionally, she has developed courses on Moodle for American College of Marbella. Dr. Nair has also taught Chemical Engineering at the Cochin University of Science and Technology branch campus in Dubai. 

Research

Her research is centred around water desalination and treatment. One-third of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water. The Middle East region depends on desalination to meet their water needs- about 90% of potable water is obtained by this process. Desalination has an impact on the environment and is an energy intensive process. Dr. Nair has published a review paper on the membrane and thermal processes used in the Middle East and the challenges in terms of environmental impact. 

Drinking water in some countries contain excess of fluoride and contaminants like Arsenic, which are detrimental to health. She has published papers on water treatment and desalination in reputed journals and a book chapter on textile effluents that contaminate water. 

Her experience involves reviewing articles for the Deswater journal and for the Water Research and Environment conferences.   

She is an honorary member of the Research section at Banasthali University, India and actively evaluates PhD synopsis/thesis in the area of water remediation. 

Publications

Publications

  • NAIR M & KUMAR D. “Water desalination and challenges: The Middle East perspective: a review”. Desalination and Water Treatment,51, 2030-2040, 2013.
  • DHILLON A, NAIR M & KUMAR D. “Analytical methods for sensing of health hazardous arsenic from biotic and abiotic natural resources”. Analytical Methods, 7, 10088-10108, 2015.
  • DHILLON A, NAIR M ,KUMAR D &BHARGAVA,S. “Excellent fluoride decontamination and antibacterial efficacy of Fe–Ca–Zr hybrid metal oxide nanomaterial”. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 457,289-297, 2015.
  • DHILLON A, NAIR M & KUMAR D. “Analytical methods for determination and sensing of fluoride in biotic and abiotic sources: A review. Analytical Methods, 8, 5338-5352,2016.
  • KUMAR D, SHARMA N & NAIR M. “Synthesis, spectral and extended spectrum beta-lactamase studies of transition metal tetraaza macrocyclic complexes”. Journal of Biological and Inorganic Chemistry, 22,535-543, 2017.
  • SHARMA R, RAGHAV S, NAIR M &KUMAR D. “Kinetic and Adsorption studies of Mercury and Lead by Ceria nanoparticles entrapped in turmeric powder”. ACS Omega, 3,14606-14619, 2018.
  • KUMAR D, NAIR M & PAINULA R. “Highly Responsive Bioinspired AgNPs Probe for the Precise Colorimetric Detection of the Mn(II) in Aqueous Systems”. Plasmonics, 14, 303-311,2018 .
  • RAGHAV S, NAIR M & KUMAR D. “Trimetallic oxide entrapped in alginate polymeric matrix employed for adsorption studies of fluoride”. Surfaces and Interfaces, 13, 112-132, 2018 
  • NEHRA S, NAIR M & KUMAR D.” Hydrothermally Shape-Controlled Synthesis of TiO2/Graphene for Fluoride Adsorption Studies”. Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data,64, 5373-5384,2019 
  • RAGHAV S, NAIR M & KUMAR D. “Tetragonal prism shaped Ni-Al bimetallic adsorbent for study of adsorptive removal of fluoride and role of ion-exchange”. Applied Surface Science, 494,2019.
  • NEHRA S, DHILLON A, SHARMA R, NAIR M & KUMAR D. “Water-dispersible magnetite montmorillonite encapsulated cellulose beads for fluoride removals and their kinetics and mechanism”. Environmental Nanotechnology, Monitoring & Management,18,2022. 

 Book Chapters

  • TALREJA N, NAIR M & KUMAR D. “Early Diagnosis of Cancer using NMR spectroscopy: A novel diagnostic approach”. Bentham eBooks, Applications of NMR Spectroscopy,7,164-185,2019.
  • SHARMA N, NAIR M &KUMAR D.” Water Pollution arising from the Chemical industry and its impact on environmental and human health”. Nova Publishers, Advances in Environmental Research,74,2020.