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06 July 2018 Photo Supplied
Five PhDs for Chemistry group at June 2018 graduation
Pictured here are the Department of Chemistry graduates and their promoters/ co-promoters. From the left are: Dr Alebel Belay, Dr Dumisani Kama, Dr Orbett Alexander, Dr Pennie Mokolokolo and Dr Pule Molokoane; back: Prof Andreas Roodt, Dr Marietjie Schutte-Smith, Dr Alice Brink and Dr Johan Venter. Prof Roodt was either promoter or co-promoter to four of the graduates, while Prof Deon Visser (promoter; not present) and Dr Alice Brink (co-promoter) supervised Dr Orbett Alexander.

What is the common factor among metal extraction from mineral reserves, the treatment of cancer, and nanomaterials in cellular phones? The answer is Chemistry. 

For the first time since the Department of Chemistry at the University of the Free State (UFS) was founded some 114 years ago, a single research group in Chemistry delivered five PhD students.  This was achieved in the division of Inorganic Chemistry at the 2018 Winter graduation ceremony by the group under leadership of Prof Andreas Roodt and senior colleagues, Drs Johan Venter, Alice Brink and Marietjie Schutte-Smith. Prof Deon Visser, a former group member, was promoter for one of the students. 

The five graduandi are Drs Alebel Belay, Dumisani Kama, Pennie Mokolokolo, Pule Molokoane and Orbett Alexander. Their research involved the use of special chemical groups which are attached to metals such as platinum, rhodium, niobium, technetium and rhenium to create compounds with special pre-selected properties. 

The combination of these special groups with the metals allow many different potential applications – all adding value. These include metal extraction from South Africa’s rich mineral reserves, the treatment of diseases such as cancer, the diagnosis of heart and brain damages, nanomaterials which are used in cellular phones, catalysts to produce cleaner petrol, special light devices which by themselves ‘glow in the dark’, and more. 

Three of the students completed part of their research in Switzerland.

News Archive

Expert in Africa Studies debunks African middle class myth
2016-05-10

Description: Prof Henning Melber Tags: Prof Henning Melber

From left: Prof Heidi Hudson, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS), Joe Besigye from the Institute of Reconciliation and Social Justice, and Prof Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor at the CAS and guest lecturer for the day.
Photo: Valentino Ndaba

Until recently, think tanks from North America, the African Development Bank, United Nations Development Plan, and global economists have defined the African middle class based purely on monetary arithmetic. One of the claims made in the past is that anyone with a consumption power of $2 per day constitutes the middle class. Following this, if poverty is defined as monetary income below $1.5 a day, it means that it takes just half a dollar to reach the threshold considered as African middle class.

Prof Henning Melber highlighted the disparities in the notion of a growing African middle class in a guest lecture titled A critical anatomy of the African middle class(es), hosted by our Centre for Africa Studies (CAS) at the University of the Free State on 4 May 2016. He is an Extraordinary Professor at the Centre, as well as Senior Adviser and Director Emeritus of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Sweden.

Prof Melber argued that it is misleading to consider only income when identifying the middle class. In his opinion, such views were advanced by promoters of the global neo-liberal project. “My suspicion is that those who promote the middle class  discourse in that way, based on such a low threshold, were desperate to look for the success story that testifies to Africa rising.”

Another pitfall of such a middle-class analysis is its ahistorical contextualisation. This economically-reduced notion of the class is a sheer distortion. Prof Melber advised analysts to take cognisance of factors, such as consumption patterns, lifestyle, and political affiliation, amongst others.

In his second lecture for the day, Prof Melber dealt withthe topic of: Namibia since independence: the limits to Liberation, painting the historical backdrop against which the country’s current government is consolidating its political hegemony. He highlighted examples of the limited transformation that has been achieved since Namibia’s independence in 1990.

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