KNUST Students Develop Cleaning Technology To Decompose Chemical Wastes From The Textile Industry
Students of the Department of Physics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have developed a cleaning technology to decompose chemical wastes from the textile industry.
Some students from the Physics Department have been exploring scientific means to rid water bodies of these hazardous wastes, which according to a 2017 report in the journal of Environment and Earth Science, the tannery and textile industries are shown as primary pollutants of the environment.
Physics students, Frederick Eshun and John Kwakye, explained that the study was influenced by the excessive chemical discharge deposited into water bodies by textile and tannery industries in Ghana.
“We conducted a survey on how water bodies polluted in our communities and we realized much attention hasn’t been given to the pollution made by tanning and textiles industries. So after reading literature, we noticed we could utilize Zinc-Oxide, a nanocomposite compound to degrade these wastes,” he said.
The cleaning technology employs use of a substance known as lanthanum doped-zinc oxide-reduced graphene oxide in degrading these chemicals under sunlight.
Frederick explained that the newly developed cleaning technology proved more effective as compared to the conventional method of using only zinc oxide in degrading these chemical wastes.
