Professor Susanta Lahiri, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and Homi Bhabha National Institute has been conferred with the prestigious Hevesy Medal Award 2015 at the Tenth International Conference on Methods and Applications of Radio-analytical Chemistry. Lahiri, the co-creator of super heavy element 117, has published nearly 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Physical Review.

Susanta Lahiri and his research team made nano particles of gold by a low-cost technique that requires the least amount of chemicals. The other person to also win the award this year is Professor Kattesh V. Katti of the Cedntre for Radiological Research, University of Missouri, Columia.

Tidbits

1. The award is named after George de HEVESY, the 1943- Chemistry Nobel Laureate and a Hungarian Radiochemist.
2. Hevesy worked on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes.
3. Hevesy co-discovered the element Hafnium.
4. Super Heavy Elements – Refer to elements beyond atomic number 100.
5. The Transuranium elements are the chemical elements with atomic numbers greater than 92.
6. Radioactive tracer is a chemical compound in which one or more atoms have been replaced by a radioisotope.  It can be used to explore the mechanism of chemical reactions by tracing the path of the radioisotope.