Did you know that cashew nuts and castor oil could be used to combat Zika and other deadly mosquito-borne disease? Or that microorganisms in animal excreta make for powerful tools to purify oil contaminated soil?
These are the two innovative ideas recognized yesterday as winners of the second Green & Sustainable Chemistry Conference in Berlin. The top prize of €50.000 went to Dr. Dênis Pires de Lima, a full professor in the Institute of Chemistry of the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil. The second prize of €25.000 went to Dr. Chioma Blaise Chikere, a lecturer in the microbiology department of the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria.