*Palm kernel shells, which an average Nigerian farmer considers as waste and ‘throws into the fire’ as fuel, may soon be an expensive commodity, as the country has successfully turned it into raw materials for brake pads, a motor part.
Director General of the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Professor Peter Onwualu, made the revelation at the weekend.
He said: “A young man from Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, under our
national design competition, received a grant to produce brake pad, using palm kernel shells as a raw material.
“Today, the material is now a good subpart. And the young man came up with a design and produced the material.
“We moved it to a company in Lagos that manufactures brake pads. And it produced a good brake pad from it.
“That brake pad is ready for the market. The only thing holding us is someone who can go into the business.
“If I receive a guarantee now, that someone is ready to buy one million copies, it is going to be something else. This is a joint project between the council and the automotive council.”
When our reporter asked him why industries are not buying into research products from the academia, he said the culture was changing.
He said his agency was leaving no stone unturned to make sure industries increased their enthusiasm for research products from the country.
“What we are doing,” he said, “is to make sure the industries are part of the research from the beginning. And as I told you with this example, the company in Lagos is part of this research.
“By the time we finished, it was able to produce it. So we are still discussing. It’s not like industries are not involved.”
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