A team of chemical engineering students from the University of Kentucky’s Paducah campus has won a federal grant of nearly $15,000 for the third time to further research on non-synthetic pesticides.
The grant will help Chemical Engineering Professor Jeffrey Seay’s students continue their research into using green chemistry to create pesticides in developing countries. Seay’s work has so far focused on Cameroon and India—two countries where it’s common to burn wood to create charcoal for cooking.
Seay says the process releases gas. And that gas can potentially be collected and reused, with the help of a processor that’s easy to make. “Normally those gases are just released into the air. So what we’re doing is condensing those gases and converting them into a non-synthetic pesticide.”
Seay says once the research is complete, communities all over the world that rely on charcoal for cooking should be able to build and use the technology to keep crops healthy.
