Prof Michael Daramola, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, delivered his inaugural address on 27 October 2020. His address focused on sustainable chemical engineering practices as a catalyst to realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Within the framework of the SDGs of the United Nations, responsible resource production and consumption, in a way that preserves the ecological footprint, coupled with challenges to meet the needs of the growing population, while minimising the pressure on the planet, will be the great challenge of engineers. Therefore, a circular economy stimulates the conservation of materials, energy and other resources by reducing, reusing and recycling them in various ways.

Prof Daramola believes that sustainable chemical engineering practices that consider the application of knowledge gained by study, experience and practice could be critically applied to develop economic ways of using materials and energy for the benefit of mankind, and to accelerate the realisation of the SDGs. Unfortunately, as a result of unsustainable chemical engineering practices, unintended by-products of these processes have caused significant damage to human lives and the ecosystem.

His recent research efforts have been directed at eliminating or minimising the negative ecological footprints of unsustainable chemical engineering activities by closing the material cycles and creating value-added commodities from the waste products of these processes through application of nanomaterials and nanocomposites in energy and environment; and also waste treatment and valorisation.

Prof Daramola is a chartered chemical engineer (C.Eng.) with the Engineering Council of UK, a COREN-registered engineer with the Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria; and a C-rated researcher by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. He is an internationally recognised scientist with more than 16 years of working experience as a researcher, a lecturer and an academic administrator at leading research organisations in France (IRCELyon), The Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, and Wageningen University and Research Centre), Singapore (Hyflux), South Africa (University of Pretoria, University of the Witwatersrand and Stellenbosch University), Ghana (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) and Nigeria (Obafemi Awolowo University, Federal University of Agriculture).

His teaching, research and administration experience and expertise, coupled with his international exposure acquired in these countries, have sharpened his professional growth and development as a researcher.

His work has earned him many awards and recognitions, such as inclusion in the 2021 Stanford top 2% scientist in the world, finalist for the 2021/22 NSTF-South32 Awards for the TW Kambule-NSTF Award: Researcher category and for the Engineering Research Capacity Development Award category. He also received the Best Visual Presentation Award at the 27th European Biomass and Exhibition Conference, held in Lisbon, Portugal from 27‒30 May 2019.

The quality of his work has earned him more national and international visibility to contribute to the development of skills and human capacity in his research as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, guest editor of GroundWater for Sustainable Development, guest editor of Frontiers in Chemical Engineering,  managing guest editor of Materials Today Proceedings, associate editor of Chemical Engineering Communications (2016 to 2019), guest editor of Membranes (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022), member of the Editorial Board of International Journal of Coal, Oil and Gas (2015 to 2019), a seasoned adjudicator for the L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Regional Fellowships for Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa event coordinator for the Water SIG of IChemE, and national panel member of the South African Bureau of Standards on CO₂ capture and storage.

He has more than 170 papers in peer-reviewed journals (ISI/Scopus-indexed), two patents, two books, more than 15 book chapters, more than 48 papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings and more than 62 oral/poster presentations at national and international conferences (more than 10 as keynote, plenary or invited speaker). He has an H-index of 27 with an i10-index of 79. His work has been cited more than 2 300 times.