A recent publication by University of Pretoria (UP) PhD student Adedapo Adeola and Professor Patricia Forbes from UP’s Department of Chemistry that appeared in the international journal Water Environment Research (a Wiley publication) was recently selected as the Editor’s Choice.

The article is titled ‘Advances in water treatment technologies for removal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: Existing concepts, emerging trends, and future prospects’ and is highly acclaimed.

In his editorial for the journal, ‘The water industry toolbox’, Professor Juan Antonio Baeza noted that the article is “a comprehensive review of existing and emerging technologies for remediation of PAH‐polluted water... the great variety of existing alternatives for water treatment and the efforts of many researchers to advance water treatment with new proposals”.

Adeola, the first author of the paper, said the selection “is a great honour as it is recognition of the hard work put into gathering data and information on this subject”.

“We should be encouraged to continue to make a difference irrespective of global and regional challenges,” he added.

Adeola is a UP-Commonwealth Scholarship holder, and his research focuses on the synthesis and application of a graphene wool composite to remove selected organic pollutants from water. Rand Water also supports his project and he is supervised by Prof Forbes, who holds a Rand Water Research Chair in the Department of Chemistry.

Adeola has four publications from his PhD work to date.

“I want to acknowledge my supervisor, funders as well as the Department of Chemistry and the University of Pretoria for providing an enabling environment for my studies,” he said.