US-based Nigerian scientist builds structure that removes pollutants from environment

As the world moves away from fossil fuels due to their non-renewable nature and harmful effects on the environment, scientists are looking for more efficient, safer and more cost-effective energy sources.

One such scientist is a US-based Nigerian researcher, Pelumi Adanigbo, an analytical chemist and material scientist, working on using green chemistry to remediate pollutants in the environment. Adanigbo’s work is not only useful for reducing pollution and recovering nature, but it is also useful in producing clean energy.

The researcher’s work involves building a 2D Van der Waal heterostructure, a structure created by stacking multiple layers of two-dimensional (2D) materials. These structures possess distinct properties and functionalities and can be used to remove pollutants from the environment.

Adanigbo obtained a bachelor’s degree in industrial chemistry. Upon graduation, he joined a production company where he worked as a quality control scientist.

His journey as a scientist began at the Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo and Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba, both in Ondo State, Nigeria, where he was a lecturer and a graduate student respectively. As a graduate student in Adekunle Ajasin, his research traversed both environmental and material science. He was involved in a couple of studies, including the remediation of environmental pollutants with domestic waste (a waste-to-wealth concept). His focus was on commonly used agro-pollutants employed by farmers, which leach into surface water and eventually get into the body system.

Now in United States he’s a doctoral researcher and works majorly as a material scientist and an analytical chemist. During his time as a master’s student, he had material synthesis research on the side which widened his understanding of material science. Besides his work on pollution remediation, he is also working on fabricating a catalyst that will support the generation and storage of an optimum amount of green and cleaner energy for the future.

Today, with more advanced equipment, he is exploring material chemistry on a nanoscale level using a special instrumental analytical technique of scanning electrochemical cell microscopy as a researcher in the United States. However, having done some research on a macro-level before now, he better understands that materials tend to behave differently on a nanoscale level.

Pelumi’s work is applicable in the tackling of pollution and recovery of nature such as soil and surface water. Whilst Pelumi is currently domiciled in the USA, his research is also very useful back in Africa, especially in his home country. In Nigeria, environmental pollution is increasing as a result of urbanization, industrial activity, agricultural changes, and the adoption of new technologies. Environmental pollution in Africa is complex to resolve because the continent is warming faster than the global average, despite contributing less than three per cent to total global greenhouse gas emissions. Also, factors such as widespread poverty, lack of robust environmental regulations, rapid urbanisation, reliance on unsustainable energy sources like biomass for cooking, limited access to clean technology, weak enforcement of existing environmental laws, and a focus on immediate economic needs often outweigh environmental concerns, making it challenging to implement effective pollution mitigation strategies.

Green chemistry can help Nigeria curb pollution by designing chemical products and processes that minimise or eliminate the generation of hazardous substances at the source, thereby preventing pollution from entering the environment in the first place. This is useful in the oil and gas industry; a major contributor to pollution and revenue generation in the Nigerian economy.

There are hopes that the works of scholars like Pelumi Adanigbo, who originate from Nigeria, can help in mitigating pollution problems in the country. However, the researcher’s story is another sad reminder of Nigeria’s ongoing brain drain, in which bright Nigerians leave the shores of the country and get trained abroad, making valuable contributions to their countries of residence. We continue to hope that Nigeria maximizes its bright minds before losing them all to foreign countries.

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