P Pramanik is a senior professor at Department of Chemistry, IIT, Kharagpur.  His main interest of research is material chemistry.



 Ruby Chakrovorty completed her MSc in  Industrial Chemistry from IIT, Kharagpur. Currently she is doing her PhD  in polymer engineering at University of Alcron, Ohio, USA.

Man has always dreamt of making a strong, diamond-like fiber. The hardness of diamond is due to its unique structure with only C-C single bonds. It is presumed that long straight chain of C-C bonds may produce the fiber which could have super-strength. Most polymers, due to random orientation of the back-bone chain, produce fibers of weak strength. It is realized from molecular modeling that rigidity of the chain may introduce the directional orientation. The invention of textile fibers such as nylon was aimed at producing super-fibers having outstanding mechanical properties. The initial thrust was to develop fibers with the heat-resistance of asbestos and the stiffness of glass. Molecular modeling indicated that stiff aromatic polyamides could be the suitable materials. But their extreme insolubility and intractability baffled the researchers.

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Address for Correspondence
Panchanan Pramanik
and Ruby Chakraborty
Department of Chemistry
Indian Institute of Technology
     Kharagpur 721302, India   
Email: pramanik@chem.iitkg.ernet.in