Department of Chemistry and Fermentation Sciences

Education:

• Ph.D. Chemistry, University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida).
  • Covalent Organic Frameworks as an organic scaffold for heterogeneous catalysis including C-H activation. Ph.D. Materials Physics and Chemistry, Wuhan University of Technology (Wuhan, China).
  • Design, Synthesis, and characterization of coordination driven self-assembled discrete metalla-assemblies. 
• M.Sc. Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur (WestBengal, India).
  • Application of reorganization energy in the determination of critical micellar concentration. 
• B.Sc. (Honours) Chemistry, University of Delhi (Delhi, India).

Professional Experience:

• Dr. Vardhan joined the faculty at Appalachian State University in 2021 and enjoys teaching introductory chemistry and organic chemistry. 
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern-Argonne Institute of Science and Engineering (Chicago, IL).
  • Elucidation of structure-property-performance relationship of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) based mixed matrix membrane for environmental remediation.

Areas of Interest:

Organic Chemistry, Organometallic Chemistry, Porous Materials Chemistry.

Research:

My research is focused on the development of structure-property-performance of porous covalent organic framework materials for heterogeneous catalysis, environmental remediation, and conversion of carbondioxide to value-added chemicals, thereby provide a sustainable approach to overcome the shortcomings of homogeneous catalysis such as lack of recyclability, reusability, toxic metal waste, and difficulty in separation. In addition, exploring an opportunity of design and synthesis of two- and three-dimensional ruthenium and iridium discrete architectures as potential candidate for sensing and anticancer activity.

Selected Publications:

H. Vardhan, M. Yusubov, F. Verpoort “Self-assembled Metal-organic Polyhedra: An Overview of Various Applications”. Coord. Chem. Rev., 2016, 306, 171-194.

H. Vardhan, A. Mehta, C.I. Ezugwu, F. Verpoort “Self-assembled Arene-ruthenium assemblies” Polyhedron, 2016, 112, 104-108.

H. Vardhan, F. Verpoort “UV-Vis absorption studies of Coordination-driven Self-assembled 2D Metalla-rectangle towards multi-carboxylate anion” Polyhedron, 2019, 157, 262-266.

H. Vardhan, G. Verma, S. Ramani, A. Nafady, AM. Al-Enizi, Y. Pan, Z. Yang, H. Yang, S. Ma. “Covalent Organic Framework decorated with vanadium as a new platform for Prins reaction and sulfide oxidation” ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019, 11, 3070-3079.

H. Vardhan, L. Hou, E. Yee, A. Nafady, MA. Al-Abdrabalnabi, AM. Al-Enizi, Y. Pan, Z, Yang, S. Ma. “Vanadium docked Covalent organic frameworks: An effective heterogeneous catalyst for modified Mannich-Type reactions” ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 2019, 7, 4878-4888

H. Vardhan, A. Nafady, A. M. Al-Enizi, S. Ma “Pore surface engineering of covalent organic frameworks: structural diversity and applications” Nanoscale 2019, 11, 21679-21708.

H. Vardhan, Y. Pan, Z. Yang, G. Verma, A. Nafady, A. Al-Enizi, T. Alotaibi, O. Almaghrabi, S. Ma “Iridium complex immobilization on covalent organic framework for effective C─H Borylation” APL Materials 2019, 7, 101111

H. Vardhan, S. Ma “Bio-inspired supramolecular catalysts” Supramolecular catalysts for monographs in “chemistry, energy and environment series” Book Chapter; Edited by: Roger Guilard, World Scientific 2020, 7, 531-577.

H. Vardhan, A. M. Al-Enizi, A. Nafady, Y. Pan, Z. Yang, H. Gutiérrez, X. Han, S. Ma “Single pore vs dual pore bipyridinebased covalent organic frameworks: An insight into the heterogeneous catalytic activity for selective C─H functionalization” Small, 2020, 2003970. Front Piece; (Highlighted in MaterialsViews)