4th Food Security and Safety (FSS) Seminar

You are cordially invited to the 4th Food Security and Safety (FSS) seminar by   Prof. Damian C. Onwudiwe   of the NWU Department of Chemistry.

Topic: Copper sulphide nanoparticles as a facile system in water treatment.

More about the speaker

Prof. Damian C Onwudiwe obtained his PhD in Inorganic and Materials Chemistry at the University of Fort-Hare, South Africa in 2011. He gained a Postdoctoral research fellowship at North-West University (NWU), Potchefstroom campus, before joining the Mahikeng campus as Senior Lecturer in 2015 and was promoted to Associate Professorship in 2019. He is the Group Leader of the Inorganic and Materials Chemistry Research Group at NWU. His area of research encompasses inorganic synthesis and the engineering of nanostructured materials for environmental application. He has published several book chapters and research papers on diverse aspects of Inorganic and Materials Chemistry, and he is a recipient of different research travel awards including a TWAS-DFG Fellowship as a Visiting Scientist at the University of Cologne, Germany; the UK Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Research Fellowship to Kings College London, UK; and the Institutional Capacity Development Grant (UCDG) to the National Centre of Research in Materials Science, Tunisia. Prof. Onwudiwe is the Principal Investigator of different NRF-funded projects and has collaborations at both national and international levels. He was the 2019, 2020, and 2021 NWU FNAS Faculty Award recipient in recognition of his exceptional research track record and immense contribution in terms of innovative research and development in the Focus Area of Materials Science Innovation and Modelling. He is a college member of the International Development Peer Review of the United Kingdom Research Initiative (UKRI) and also a National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa Rated Researcher in the Y2 category. In addition, Prof Onwudiwe is on the Editorial Boards of different journals including Frontiers in Materials, Results in Surfaces and Interfaces, and Catalysts.

Research Abstract

Water is an important resource, and clean water is important for healthy living. However, water sources are under constant threat due to pollution from numerous inorganic and organic contaminants that find their way into the environment as effluents from the industry or domestic waste. A new class of pollutants, known as contaminants of emerging concern or CEC, has recently aroused research interest because of their adverse effects on health and economic impacts.  The inability of different conventional wastewater treatment systems to adequately remove these CEC has necessitated the development of new types of materials in order to combat this menace. Recently, advanced oxidation processes (AOP), which induce the degradation of molecules by the generation of reactive radicals, have become important. The reason is not only because of their ability to degrade the emerging contaminants, but also due to their environmental friendliness, cost-effectiveness, and the potential to achieve complete mineralization of pollutants without the generation of secondary waste streams. Our study explores the use of semiconductor copper sulphide nanoparticles of different optical and structural properties in radical specie generation as a facile system for the degradation of pollutants in water. The focus is on dyes, pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics and toxic metals such as hexavalent chromium in particular.

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