Opening up new opportunities and building networks for the advancement of science and education in developing countries
Dr. Mirabbos Hojamberdiev (TWAS Young Affiliate from Uzbekistan) and Dr. Adewale Adewuyi (TWAS Young Affiliate from Nigeria) met for the first time at the 1st International Conference of TWAS Young Affiliates Network (TYAN), which was held on 22-24 August, 2017, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At an active interaction during poster and oral sessions of the conference, both young affiliates were interested to initiate a research collaboration particularly on water purification using low-cost adsorbents and visible light photocatalysts.
Three TWAS Young Affiliates (Dr. Mirabbos Hojamberdiev, Dr. Ronald Vargas, and Dr. Adewale Adewuyi) again met at the 1st TYAN International Thematic Workshop: “Fundamentals of Photoelectrochemistry: from materials science to energy conversion”, held in Chascomús, Argentina, in 23-27 April, 2018 and updated their collaboration achievements, discussed the obtained results, and exchanged ideas and samples.
The development of traditional mining and metallurgical industry as well as modern batteries and electronics in turn generates large amount of wastes and effluents containing various hazardous heavy metals, including copper. Heavy metals must be completely recovered for economic and environmental reasons. In their first collaborative work that appeared in Elsevier’s Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, they have developed diisopropyldithiophosphoric acid-impregnated macroporous non-ionogenic styrene-divinylbenzene polymeric sorbent for efficient, simple, safe, and environment-friendly extraction of Cu2+ from industrial wastewaters using small amount of organic solvent.
Future plan:-To strengthen research collaboration in developing low-cost and eco-friendly materials for efficient energy conversion and environmental remediation;
-To expand the geography of research collaboration by involving more TWAS Young Affiliates to conduct interdisciplinary research work on developing novel materials;
-To prepare a multilateral and multidisciplinary project proposal on energy conversion and apply for international research funding.
-To increase visibility of research activity in this area conducted in the developing countries in the world and building capacity in this field in the South.