Arun Kumar Biswas

Arun Kumar Biswas (6 July 1934 – 30 November 2015) was a professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (India) during 1963–95.

After his initial studies at Saint Xaviers College (1948–52), he went on to Science College (1952–59) (both in Calcutta) to complete his Master and Doctorate degrees in Applied Chemistry.

He submitted his doctoral thesis (1959) on surface-active agents from glycerides and their fascinating micellar world in aqueous solutions.

Inspired by the advice of his mentor, Dr. K.K. Majumdar (who later became the founding President of the Indian Institute of Mineral Engineers (IIME)), Biswas took up mineral engineering as one of the goals of his professional career and the study of the challenging subject of froth flotation which involved the investigations related to surface science, one of his passions.

At MIT (1960–63), he worked on hysteresis of contact angle under the guidance of Professor Antoine Marc Gaudin.

Learning at MIT was not confined to science of mineral processing; he continued with his interest in music, which he developed in early fifties, and simultaneously attended a course in Music Department on 'Music Appreciation'.

In his own words, ‘... (he) contacted Professor AM Gaudin of MIT and was warmly invited ... and then opened before him the glamorous world of MIT education in several fields: mineralogy and crystallography (William Dennen and Martin Burger), optical mineralogy (GE Agar), mineral engineering (AM Gaudin), physical chemistry of surfaces (PL de Bruyn and Alan Michaels) and even archaeometallurgy (the famous CS Smith) and history of science and civilization (guess who, Aldous Huxley who was a Visiting Professor during the Centenary year of 1961)!’ He went to MIT as a Fulbright Fellow.

Professor Biswas returned to India in 1963 and joined Department of Metallurgical Engineering (now Materials and Metallurgical Engineering ) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

He was the founding members of the department where he served as a faculty member during (1963–95).

During his distinguished career of 32 years (1963–94) at IIT/K, Biswas developed and taught several courses related to mineral processing.

He established the Materials Separation and Surface Chemistry laboratories.

Biswas enjoyed the reputation of a dedicated teacher and was popular among students.

Industrial perspective was a hallmark of his teaching.

Starting from his early career, he used to visit mineral based industry/institutes almost every summer.

Besides teaching, he guided many students in their research at Doctoral, Masters and Bachelors levels.

Many of them are well-established professionals now in India and abroad.

Biswas believed that both basic and applied research are critical for the industry.

He advocated the importance of characterisation in mineral research and collaborated with several of his colleagues in the institute, notably professors TR Ramachandran and Ranjit K Ray.

The motivation of many of the research projects pursued under his guidance was to find innovative means of beneficiating several complex and/or low-grade Indian mineral deposits, such as monazite beach sand, zircon, molybdenite, diamond, phos¬phorites, zinc ferrite, zinc tailings and residues, alumina-rich iron ore, pyrite, separation amongst calcium mineral systems, Kudremukh-iron ore tailing, deep sea manganese nodules, ferrotungsten deposits etc. Simultaneous studies were also carried out in his laboratory on several key unit operations in mineral processing, such as comminution, froth flotation, selective flocculation, leaching and bacterial leaching.

In basic research, some studies by Biswas and his coworkers received international attention; for example:

In late seventies and eighties, Biswas and coworkers made important contributions towards characterization of mineral separation systems using XRD, SEM with X-ray microanalysis, EPMA, TEM and several spectroscopic techniques (IR, NMR, Mossbauer, etc.).

The systems studied included fine grained alumina-rich Indian iron ore, Zn-containing flotation tails, Zawar ancient siliceous slag and retorts, and ferromanganese nodules from the Indian Ocean and their synthetic analogues, chalcopyrite, and synthetic tungsten minerals.

Biswas participated in several important international conferences such as International Mineral Processing Congresses (Cannes, 1963; Prague, 1970; Cagliari, 1975; Warsaw, 1979) and International Symposium on Surfactants, Gainesville, Florida, 1990.

Biswas's intellectual activities extended far beyond mineral engineering and covered languages, archaeometallurgy, minerals and gems in ancient India, literature, music and religions – mostly in the Indian context.

The essence of his early years at IIT Kanpur can be gauged from his personal recollection, 'During the period 1964–1970, Biswas was extremely busy in organising the mineral engineering programme at IIT Kanpur in collaboration with his esteemed colleagues: TC Rao who had worked with Professor AJ Lynch in Australia, A Ghosh who had worked with Professor TB King at MIT, and the two geologist colleagues: KVGK Gokhale who wrote a book on mineral resources in India, co-authored by TC Rao, and BC Ray Mahasay the renowned geochemist from the Harvard University.

He is well known for his contributions in the area of mineral engineering, archaeometallurgy, minerals and gems in antiquity, history of science, philosophy, science and music, etc. Biswas was the founding member of Indian Institute of Mineral Engineers (1969).

Professor Gerhard Derge had gone back to USA, but he kept on sending valuable advice to Biswas on the subject of mineral engineering ... 1968 ..., A K Biswas planned a Short Course on 'Mineral Engineering Practice' to be held at IIT Kanpur on 27 and 28 February 1969, to be followed by a Seminar on "Mineral Engineering Education" scheduled on 1 March ... An invitation was sent to Professor AM Gaudin through the KIAP (unfortunately the visit did not take place) .... Professor Gaudin's love for antiquity was very deep and infectious, imbibed by many of his students, including AK Biswas'.

In 1969, he published his first book, Science in India (Firma KLM, Kolkata).

Along with Dr. KK Majumdar, head of ore dressing section at BARC and several other stalwarts working in the area of mineral processing, he played a very active role in the setting up of Indian Institute of Mineral Engineers (IIME) which was registered as a Society on 12 November 1969.

Founder president of Indian Language Society in the early 1980s at IIT/K, he served several organizations in various honorary capacities: Mahendralal Sircar Research Professor in History of Science at the Asiatic Society, Kolkata (1995–2001); the AICTE Emeritus Fellow at the Jadavpur University (2001–2004); and INSA Research Fellow in Kolkata.

He was a member of the INSA National Commission for History of Science and, the editorial board member of the Indian Journal of the History of Science.

The period around 1980 was also the beginning of his increasing interest in archaeometallurgy.

Characterisation studies on ancient slag and retorts from Zawar mines later culminated in a number of papers on the primacy of India in brass and zinc metallurgy.

Biswas was the founder-president of the Indian Languages Society, which organized a national seminar on Profiles in Indian languages during 10–12 December 1982.

The proceedings of the seminar were published as a multi-authored book Profiles in Indian languages and literatures, which received international acclaim.

During 1987–90, History of Science Division of Indian National Science Academy (INSA) sponsored a project on 'Minerals and Metals in Ancient India up to 1200 AD from Sanskrit Literature and other Sources'.

In this project, he was ably assisted by his wife, Sulekha, a Sanskrit scholar.

The project completion report submitted in 1991 later (in 1996) resulted in the publication of the monumental monograph called 'Minerals and Metals in Ancient India'.

This two volume monograph (volume 1 – Archaeological Evidence, Volume – 2 Literary Evidence) tells the fascinating, coherently woven story of the Mineral and Metals from across the entire sub-continental sprawl of the old-world India (including Pakistan and Bangladesh).

On his association with IIME, in 2012, he observed, 'I was proud (and still am) to become the first Life Member of the proposed institute'.