About the Curriculum

Common core courses constitute the foundation of the M.Sc. (Chemistry) program of IIT Mandi. They cover about 36% of the curriculum. This segment includes several fundamental courses of organic, inorganic and physical chemistry, based on topics like organic reaction mechanisms, photochemistry, pericyclic reactions, heterocyclic chemistry, main group chemistry, transition metal chemistry, organometallic chemistry, advanced quantum chemistry, group theory, spectroscopy, chemical & statistical thermodynamics, reaction dynamics, kinetics & catalysis.

Chemistry Elective courses offer the students a wide array of fundamental as well as application-oriented chemistry courses with several of them being interdisciplinary in nature. They cover about 19% of the curriculum. This diverse selection gives ample freedom to the students to pursue their choice of area in chemistry as they find relevant for their research projects and future research endeavours. Chemistry elective courses have been developed on areas like reagents in organic synthesis, stereochemistry, natural product synthesis, organic & inorganic spectroscopy, bioinorganic chemistry, crystallography, fluorescence spectroscopy, microscopy, polymers, nanomaterials, supramolecular chemistry, computational chemistry, hydrogen generation & storage, analytical techniques, bio-inspired materials, molecular & bio-electronics etc.

Chemistry Hands-on courses are divided into two components: Laboratory courses and Research projects and they cover about 30% of the curriculum. We offer three laboratory courses on three major branches of chemistry i.e. organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry and physical chemistry. These courses are designed in such a way that they serve as a bridge between theoretical understanding and experimental skills required in modern chemistry research. The laboratory courses involve performing organic reactions to synthesize and purify organic compounds, inorganic quantitative and qualitative analysis of acids-bases, metal ions, synthesis of inorganic complexes, nanoparticles and their characterization by UV-VIS spectra, Fluorescence, FTIR, NMR, HRMS, X-Ray diffractions etc., determination of critical micellar concentration, pKa, distribution coefficient, equilibrium constant, phase diagram etc., interaction studies and titrations.

Research project component has been carefully designed to introduce the students to cutting-edge chemistry research, as early as possible. In this unique design, during the first two semesters, students get a flavour of chemistry research through Design Practicum (DP-I & II), where they do intensive literature survey to identify a research problem that they will work on in the 3rd and 4th semester. In the third semester, the actual Postgraduate Project work starts, and students perform extensive research work on individual research projects over the second year of M.Sc.

Code	Elective Course Title	L-T-P-C
CY670	Fluorescence spectroscopy, microscopy and applications	3-0-0-3
CY645	Reagents in Organic Synthesis	3-0-0-3
CY555	Introduction to Polymer Science & Technology	3-0-0-3
CY552	Hydrogen generation and storage	3-0-0-3
CY644	Bioinorganic Chemistry	3-0-0-3
CY556	Organic Spectroscopy	3-0-0-3
CY554	Science and Technology of Nanomaterials	3-0-0-3
CY547	Chemical Crystallography	2-0-2-3
CY560	Introduction to Supramolecular Chemistry	3-0-0-3
CY522	Computational Chemistry	3-0-0-3
CY561	Natural Products Synthesis	3-0-0-3
CY562	Stereochemistry of Organic Compounds	3-0-0-3
CY515	Advanced Inorganic Spectroscopy	3-0-0-3
CY550	Bioinspired Materials	3-0-0-3
CY642	Molecular and Bio-electronics	3-0-0-3
CY643	Advanced Analytical Techniques	3-0-0-3