CHENNAI: The sight of rotating leather tanning drums, a continuous exchange of chemicals and a drifting odour were Muhender Raj Rajvee’s initial brush with Chemistry. “For around 15 years, my father worked at a tannery in China. During summer vacations I used to visit him. I spent a major part of the trip in the factory. Despite the overbearing smell, I used to enjoy observing the process. But whenever I needed a respite, I used to head to my father’s office.
It was the safest place in the factory,” recalls Muhender. “I was five or six years old then. But such initial experiences and my father’s encouragement piqued my interest in Chemistry and technology,” he shares. Recently, the 17-year-old represented India and bagged silver at the 51st International Chemistry Olympiad held in Paris. He is the youngest to win this honour from Tamil Nadu.
Selection process
To represent the country in the Olympiad, students go through five stages of selection process which includes exams and hands-on training. “The process involved cracking the National Standard Examination for Chemistry and Indian National Chemistry Olympiad, after which a 10-day residential Orientation-Cum-Selection Camp (OCSC) was conducted for 30 selected students.
The final four went through a pre-departure camp for 20 days at Homi Bhabha Centre for Science and Excellence and then we were taken to the final competition in Paris,” says Muhender, who is selected for the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana, an on-going national programme of fellowship in Basic Sciences, initiated and funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, this year. “The experience was amazing. Not only did I get to represent the country, but also had the opportunity to interact with students from different parts of the globe and understand their culture,” he shares.
Green chemistry
Fresh off his win at the Olympiad, the whiz kid doesn’t want to stop. Looking beyond academic success, he also wants to do his bit to make the future sustainable. “My father came back to India in 2013 and started a tannery in Ranipet. This was the time when I learned in depth about the tanning process,” says the teenager who also dabbles with the keyboard. He holds a Grade 5 certificate from Trinity College London.
In 2014, when his father enrolled him in BASF Kids Lab in Chennai, a one-day event with a gamut of hands-on learning experiences through experiments, Muhender realised the need for green chemistry in the modern world. During the brief yet awakening experience, Muhender was exposed to the environmental impacts of tanning. “With the leather industry contributing to a major part of climate change, industries are looking for commercially viable, innovative technologies to reduce water consumption and chemical pollution. To address the issue in hand, I put my mind to find a viable solution,” he says. He soon started working on concocting a less-polluting alternative.
Since there is a dire need for elimination of chrome from the process, Muhender’s first choice was blending the vegetable tanning agents with other tanning materials that are abundantly available and easily renewable. “Due to a few drawbacks like long processing hours and not meeting the testing standards set by the industry, tanners are hesitant to use fully vegetable-tanned leather. I suggested combining aldehyde with vegetable re-tanning to meet the customer specifications,” he explains. “We used aldehyde with sulphone as a tanning agent to make wet white leather. We used a few pieces of hides as trial. While this may require extra investment in infrastructure, it will pay off,” he says, confidently.
Muhender also plans to reduce water consumption by 20 per cent and reuse water whenever possible. “We have also started collecting rainwater and use it in the process,” says Muhender who is currently preparing for IIT-JEE at Kota, Rajasthan. On the sidelines, he is also preparing for the International Olympiad to be held in Turkey in 2020. He aspires to make strides in Chemistry while combining it with technology. “My dream is to formulate chemicals for environment-friendly leather tanning. It should be easily disposable and not cause any hazards to the future generations,” he says.