The labs pointing to a greener future for Africa

With climate change already affecting many countries across Africa, chemists there are investing their expertise to make an impact on climate adaptation and environmental problems. From designing enzymes for green manufacturing, exploring batteries that can store more renewable energy to turning lake weeds into green fuel are some of the initiatives under investigation or already delivering the promise of new tomorrow.

In 2019, structural biologists from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, delivered novel and exciting insights into the structure and inner workings of a plant nitrilase enzyme – a member of a class of enzymes that are widely used in the synthesis of a broad range of chemicals. Some of the enzymes in this family could one day clean up toxic cyanide waste.

Gugulethu Nkala, of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, is working on a material based on the sodium superionic conductor (Nasicon) structure type, namely lithium titanium phosphate. Michelle Sibonokuhle Nyoni is a chemistry lecturer at the Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe, which she balances with being a part-time PhD student investigating lithium vanadium phosphates as improved cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries.

Kenya’s cooking fuel market is dominated by charcoal, firewood, liquefied petroleum gas and kerosene. These pose serious health hazards, environmental and socio-economic costs. Globally, 3 billion people cook over smoky open fires or on stoves using kerosene, wood, charcoal, dung or coal, the World Health Organization  says. As a result, more than 4 million deaths occur every year. Among the transformative fuels considered viable, clean and affordable is ethanol, though still on a small scale.