UNILORIN don wins N1.5m Ayo Ogunye research grant

A university teacher, Dr. Jamiu Adeniran has won the 2017 Prof Ayo Ogunye endowment chair in the sum of N1.5 million research grant to address the challenges posed by pollutants from airtight environment such as homes, offices and cars.

According to Adeniran, a Chemical Engineering lecturer at the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), researches have shown that pollutants from cooking, deodorants and even air conditioners, among others, negatively affect human lives as they remain indoors, and particularly poorly ventilated environments, for weeks and months in some instances.

Thus to absorb these pollutants, Adeniran is working on a research that will make use of waste agricultural products to produce absorbents through the development of hybridized titanium dioxide photocatalytic and absorption unit towards purifying indoor air.

The winner was selected after a rigorous selection processes. At the presentation of the cheque, which held recently at the Senate Chamber of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, the Chairman of the research grant committee, Prof. Oluwole Familoni, expressed confidence that the research output will be beneficial to humanity.

Familoni said his committee had advertised for the programme, calling for young researchers in the field of Chemical Engineering whose innovation could be addressed with about N1.5 million.

“Within three months, we received many proposals and after subjecting them to internal review, awarding scores on a scale of one to three, we employed external assessors who subjected the best five to the same process. And among the candidates, Dr. Adeniran ranked first.”

He said the professorial chair’s board of management has eminent personalities including the incumbent vice-chancellor of UNILAG, Prof. Rahamon Bello and one of his predecessors, Oye Ibidapo-Obe respectively as members, while the board is chaired by 86-year-old former General Technical Manager, Lever Brothers Nigeria Limited, Mr. Anthony Shobo, an engineer.

Speaking on the motivation behind the setting up of the chair, its sponsor, Prof. Ayo Ogunye, said he was deeply concerned about ways to impart the nation’s engineering sector through the use of research.

Ogunye, who was the pioneer Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering in UNILAG and the institution’s first Professor of Chemical Engineering, had in the ‘90s donated his retirement benefits of N333, 370 and his pension entitlements, earned since 1995, to endow the chair.