Dr Swaroop Chakraborty

Research Interests

My research focuses on understanding how engineered nanomaterials and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) transform when they enter environmental and biological systems, and how these transformations alter their identity, reactivity, functionality, and potential impacts on environmental health. A central theme of my work is that the behaviour of an advanced material cannot be understood solely from its pristine structure. Instead, exposure to water chemistry, biomolecules, organisms, soils and other environmental conditions can drive dissolution, restructuring, surface reactions, phase changes, and the formation of new transformation products with properties that differ substantially from those of the original material.

I combine environmental nanoscience, synchrotron-based spectroscopy and imaging, materials characterisation, and ecotoxicology to resolve these processes across multiple length scales. Much of my work uses large-scale research facilities to determine where materials accumulate, how their local chemical environments evolve, and whether the parent material remains identifiable after exposure. Alongside environmental fate and safety, I am increasingly interested in how transformation can be harnessed for functionality, including the development of MOFs for sustainable agriculture. This includes responsive MOF platforms for crop protection that can sense plant stress, deliver protective agents when required, and subsequently transform into less persistent products, as well as broader opportunities in controlled nutrient delivery, soil remediation and reduction of agrochemical inputs. An important direction of my research is therefore the development of transformation-informed approaches to Safe and Sustainable by Design, including the concept of an environmental transformation hierarchy that links material identity, exposure conditions, transformation pathways, functionality and biological consequences. Ultimately, my research aims to enable advanced materials to be designed not only for performance, but with their environmental fate, agricultural relevance and long-term safety considered from the outset.

Scientific Inspiration

My scientific inspiration comes less from a single individual and more from the challenge of understanding, at a fundamental level, what happens to particles when they interact with the environment and living organisms. I am particularly inspired by research that moves beyond conventional measurements of exposure and toxicity to uncover the mechanistic processes that control particle transformation, chemical identity, reactivity and biological fate.

This strongly shapes my own research approach. I am interested in following materials beyond their pristine state and determining how their structure and chemistry evolve in environmentally and biologically relevant conditions. A major motivation for me is the opportunity to use large-scale research facilities across Europe, particularly synchrotron-based spectroscopy, microscopy and imaging, to probe these transformations at spatial and chemical resolutions that cannot be achieved using conventional laboratory techniques. Combining these capabilities with environmental chemistry and biological models allows me to ask not simply where a particle goes, but what it becomes, why it transforms, and how that transformation influences its subsequent functionality, persistence and environmental or biological effects.