March 3: Lord Sri Krishna and Arjuna have made it to the cover of the prestigious international chemistry journal, Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, of the United Kingdom.
The famous scene from the Mahabharata depicting Lord Sri Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot was designed by the University of Hyderabad for an article on research on “one-pot” chemical reactions contributed by Dr B.D. Ramachary of the university’s department of chemistry. “Lord Sri Krishna stands for celestial philosophy. The ‘one-pot combination’ reaction developed by us is a classic example of chemical philosophy. Our chemical philosophy is inspired by the celestial philosophy of Lord Sri Krishna,” explained Dr Ramachary.
Dr Ramachary emphasises the need for development of different ways of producing chemical products that have an influence on the daily life of man in a more sustainable way, producing less waste and involving less money.
“Organic synthesis can be made much more efficient by designing the processes in which multiple catalysts operate sequentially in ‘one pot’ with multiple components,” he said.
Dr Ramachary said he derived the inspiration to develop this novel chemical philosophy/technology from the great epic, the Mahabharata, as the warriors Arjuna and Lord Sri Krishna achieved many victories, protecting people from demons and keeping them in good spirits.
“Similarly, sequential one-pot combination of multi-component reactions and multi-catalysis cascade reactions will be victorious over many problems in synthetic organic and pharmaceutical chemistry,” he said.
