Empowering students with advanced knowledge and skills in chemistry was evident at the South African Chemical Institute Postgraduate symposium (SACI) held for Hons and BTech students at the DUT Steve Biko Campus on Friday last week (24 October 2015).

Students from the Durban University of Technology (DUT), University of Zululand (UniZulu) and University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), research experts, mentors and examiners converged to the symposium where postgraduate students had the opportunity to present their research projects to academic peers who critiqued their work.

Top four students were awarded prizes in both oral and poster presentations. The oral presentations were held at the Library Complex (LC025) and the poster viewing session was held at the University’s Art Gallery on the Steve Biko Campus.

SACI representative and HoD in the University’s Chemistry Department, Professor Krishna Bisetty, said the aim of the event was to promote and strengthen the collaborative linkages. “The KZN Branch of the South African Chemical Society (SACI) is actively involved in showcasing student projects for the Master’s/Doctoral students and for the Honour/BTech students at two separate functions. Both annual events are hosted at UKZN and DUT respectively and involve all the higher education institutions in KZN. DUT has successfully hosted this regional event for the past eight years. The purpose of these symposia is to provide an enabling environment for post-graduate students to present their research projects to academic peers who critique their work and give pointers for possible interesting research areas in chemistry. The primary goals are not only for students to showcase their work, but also to provide a platform for networking opportunities to increase students’ visibility in their respective academic fields,” he said.

Delivering the keynote address at the event was Professor Suren Singh, Faculty of Applied Sciences Executive Dean, who said that DUT was doing fairly well in terms of research. “It’s fitting to know that the SACI branch in KZN is actively involved in showcasing research projects at this level, especially for the BTech and Honours students in the region. Bringing together higher education institutions is very important and it also drives good, fundamental research that will eventually lead to a guided research.My message is to you (students) is to embrace all these ideologies because the rest of the world is.At DUT and UKZN, there are pockets of students that are working internationally, and if you want to get involved with international research, then this is the place and platform to be in as you (students) can make good careers for yourselves,” said Prof Singh.

Coming first in the oral presentations was K Balgobind from DUT, who spoke about the electrochemical detection of aspartame. In second place was Nobuhle Hadebe from UniZulu. His presentation focused on the synthesis of lead sulphide nano particles using lead thiosemicarbazone complexes as single source precursors.

The impressive poster presentation was won by Z Mchunu from DUT and in second place was N Xulu from UKZN’s Pietermaritzburg Campus.

-Waheeda Peters

Pictured: Prof Krishna Bisetty, DUT Chemistry Department HoD and SACI representative at DUT, with K Balgobind from DUT; the winner of the oral presentation.