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Personality of The Week: Dr Albert Adjaottor

POTW - Dr A. A. Adjaottor

Our Personality for this week is Dr Albert Amatey Adjaottor, popularly known by his students as Integrity. We had an interesting interview session with him which has been passively documented. Enjoy the read as you learn something valuable.

PROFILE
Dr Albert Amatey Adjaottor is a senior lecturer at the Department of Materials Engineering. He also doubles as the International Students Officer for the College of Engineering. Some of of the courses he lectures at the undergraduate level include Transport Phenomena in Materials Processing and Polymer Engineering.

EDUCATION
Dr Adjaottor as he is commonly referred to attended Achimota School in Accra. He began schooling in 1973 and completed in 1980, spending a total of 7 years to acquire his O’ level and A’ level certificates. He explained that O’ level (Ordinary level) took 5 years to complete, which spanned form 1 to form 5. He also added that A’ (Advanced level) took 2 years to complete, which were lower and upper sixth forms; taking a year each.

He gained admission to KNUST to read B.Sc. Chemical Engineering for his undergraduate level. For his Masters and PhD levels, he got the opportunity to study the field of Materials Engineering at the Louisiana State University, USA. In his Masters project, He worked on Aerosols and Aluminium Nitride as a Ceramic for various applications. For his PhD, he worked on Surface Modification of Titanium Alloys by Plasma Process.

His expertise include the special fields of Renewable Energy, Powder X-ray Diffraction, Failure Analysis, MATLAB, AFM, Mechanical Testing, Spectroscopy, Simulation, Finite Element Analysis among many others.

TO STUDENTS OF MATESA
He encouraged Materials and Metallurgical Engineering students to never give up on this cause because today’s world of Information Technology thrives on advanced materials. Talk of smart electronic devices, UAVs in Automobile, catalysts for the chemical industry, steel pipes for oil rigs and other structures in the petroleum sector, prosthesis for biomedical application among others.

PLASTIC POLLUTION
Dr Adjaottor opined that in order for us to properly tackle the menace of plastic waste pollution, attitude was the primary and key tool. He lamented on how people thoughtlessly dispose single-use plastics and the cataclysmic consequence thereof.

 THE VALCO STORY
Dr Adjaottor gave a little history about Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), an aluminium-making company in Tema, Ghana. He said that VALCO imported its raw material, alumina, from Kaiser Aluminium, Jamaica, though Ghana had and still has bauxite deposits.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION
He stated that he will work with his up-and-coming project students in the area of recycling PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) plastics. PET or PETE is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing and most commonly used as bottle containers.

SOCIAL
Dr Adjaottor is a hall fellow of Unity Hall, KNUST. His twin sisters also read engineering in KNUST. One of them was present for the second session of the Engineering Leadership Skills seminar, held on Thursday, 27th February 2020

Check out Dr Adjaottor’s profile on LinkedIn professional online community.

Thank you for reading. We hoped you’ve learnt something. Kindly anticipate our next personality. You can also drop a comment on who you think it would be.
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