Integrated beverage company, Delta Corporation has started channeling investments towards financing of sprouting young technopreneurs from Zimbabwe’s various institutions of learning including Harare Institute of Technology (HIT), Midlands State University (MSU), National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and University of Zimbabwe among others.
The Delta Make a Difference National Competitions and Showcase is a platform designed to attract monetary investment for student-led business ideas focusing on recycling Delta Corporation’s waste into commercial value.
Students who participate in the competition are expected to produce practical solutions which integrate modern technology to provide a recycling formula for beverage waste.
The inaugural Delta Make a Difference National Competitions and Showcase kicked off in Harare on Friday which saw the Harare Institute of Technology Boost Club winning a total of UDS$3 500 in prize money.
The HIT Boost Team, which was competing under the university’s flagship NanoAlum Private Ltd, presented a cutting edge and innovative project on recycling aluminium beverage and alcohol cans into nano-aluminum oxide for use in water treatment processes.
The process for making the nano-particles involves collection of disposed aluminium cans, cleaning, crushing them, before reacting them with sulphuric acid. They are then crystallized and synthesized with aluminium oxide into the desired nano-particle product. This nano-particle product from the cans can also be used as reactive additives, in the manufacture of rotor blades for hydroelectric power plants, and material coating among others.
