A materials scientist and his research team are exploring cutting-edge energy technologies, including plastic valorization (the conversion of microplastics into fuel) and the development of a new generation of supercapacitors and batteries for sustainable power production
This Q&A series highlights the experiences and achievements of select African researchers who have benefited from training and fellowship programs supported through Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Higher Education and Research in Africa portfolio.
David Dodoo-Arhin, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Ghana and director-designate of the university’s Institute of Applied Science and Technology (IAST).
As a child in Ghana, I wanted to be a pilot. I saw a lot of helicopters visiting where I used to live with my parents in Navrongo in northern Ghana — and I was fascinated. Because my mother was a nurse, at one point I also wanted to be a doctor, but that didn’t work out either because of our economic circumstances. After finishing secondary school in 1994, I gained admission to university. But my parents couldn’t afford the fees and associated costs at the time, so I was advised to go to a teacher training college. So I did, completing my degree in 1998. I then taught at the Elmina Methodist Junior Secondary School. In 2000, I was able to sponsor myself to the University of Cape Coast in Ghana to pursue a bachelor of science in physics. At the university, I worked as a part-time student presenter at the campus radio station. Between 2004 and 2006, I worked as a teaching assistant at the university and at two senior high schools.
In 2006, I gained admission to the University of Trento in Italy to pursue a doctorate in materials engineering, a field that cuts across the sciences — physics, chemistry, biology, computers, etc. I completed my PhD with the Department of Materials Engineering and Industrial Technologies four years later, with particular focus on nanostructured oxides for energy and environmental applications.
My current research group specializes in energy materials, and right now we’re adding value to plastic waste, that is: plastic waste to energy, including converting the microplastics that are everywhere in the oceans into fuels.
I joined the University of Ghana in 2011 as a lecturer in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The department was then barely ten years old, we had to basically grow it from scratch. But I was lucky to have benefitted from Carnegie Corporation–supported initiatives, including the Next Generation of African Academics (NGAA) project, the Cambridge Africa Partnership for Research Excellence (CAPREx) project, the African Materials Science and Engineering Network (AMSEN), the Carnegie Fund for Conference Attendance (CFCA), and the Building a New Generation of Academics in Africa (BaNGA-Africa) project. Funding coming my way from sources like these spurred me on from lecturer status to a full professorship within 10 years. It is worth stating that the CAPREx postdoctoral fellowship program was a turning point in my academic career.
My current research group specializes in energy materials, and right now we’re adding value to plastic waste, that is: plastic waste to energy, including converting the microplastics that are everywhere in the oceans into fuels. I’m also working on energy storage materials, things like supercapacitors and batteries as ways to store excess power that can then serve as back-up for solar panel systems even at night or on cloudy days. Sustainable power production.
Most grants don’t allow for the purchase of high-end state-of-the-art equipment, so usually you have travel out of the country with your samples to carry out some of your research using external laboratory facilities. This makes it challenging — when using such facilities — to train the next generation of students and researchers, and to follow up on your research activities.
During my postdoctoral fellowships, I started working on ways to produce graphene-based devices for energy conversion applications using simple but cutting-edge work techniques. However, the research could not be expanded locally due to equipment challenges. Currently, we are exploring funding opportunities to scale up our laboratory work on plastic waste conversion into fuels (known as “plastic valorization”), including doing some proof-of-concept work and then venturing into commercialization. For example, I plan to use the fuel in my own car as a demonstration. I recently was awarded a $20,000 grant from the University of Ghana Research Fund (UGRF) to support my plastic valorization research. We have also gotten involved with the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP) — so I think our work is gradually having an impact.
Over four years ago, I started engaging policymakers through a number of fellowships, including with the Global Young Academy’s Africa Science Leadership Programme (ASLP) and the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). The latter provides short-term fellowships at policymaking or policy-advising organizations for emerging African leaders in the sciences. I did some policy briefs and surveys on, for example, “The Role of Scientific Knowledge in Policymaking: Scientists/Researchers and Policymakers Perspectives.” I worked with the International Science Council (ISC)/International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA) in South Africa, and then with the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation in Ghana. So I’m gradually getting closer to the policymakers. That’s a change for me: before, it was just about doing basic/applied research and then getting my students involved. But as I have learned, “You need to influence policy as well.”
I realized that there is a specific way that scientists need to communicate their work with policymakers, but in fact we usually don’t communicate our research clearly enough for policymakers, in a way that they will be able to understand it. We don’t even know how to put up a good, catchy policy brief.
With the plastic fuel project, we are engaging with informal settlements and rural communities along the coast. With so much plastic waste getting into the sea and littering the beaches, community members can collect these plastics and then with the plastic waste conversion technology, they can obtain various types of fuel that can be used in the gasoline-powered generators that supply them with electricity. The community takes ownership of the process, and if the fuel is optimized, there are business opportunities to be had. So there is a business plan associated with this project. I want to put the research to work in a form that people in the community can appreciate it. I want them to benefit from the project, to use it to solve problems in their communities. Initially, it was like an academic exercise, but now it has to go further.
I had a week of training with an Africa science leadership program — and I really want to get more, because that one-week experience really changed my perceptions of how to communicate science to different categories of people. I realized that there is a specific way that scientists need to communicate their work with policymakers, but in fact we usually don’t communicate our research clearly enough for policymakers, in a way that they will be able to understand it. We don’t even know how to put up a good, catchy policy brief.
I like to travel. I spend time with family, and I go to church. Sometimes I play some football, and I love to play tennis. Sometimes reading, but not science: I like fiction, investigative nonfiction, and motivational books on leadership. So it’s not all academics!
TOP: David Dodoo-Arhin, PhD (Credit: Aya Sinada)
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