Libreville, the capital of Gabon, hosted the third International Conference on Eco-materials from 12 to 14 June 2024, announced by Samuel Ikogou, chair of the organising committee, professor at École Polytechnique de Masuku, former Director General of École Nationale des Eaux et Forêts and a specialist in geomaterial rheology. The conference took place at Université Internationale de Libreville – Berthe & Jean, at PK 23 in Essassa.
The climate crisis — droughts, floods, fires and pollution — is a major global concern requiring urgent individual and collective responses to preserve the vital resources needed by people, animals and nature. All stakeholders are called upon to provide concrete and viable responses to the harmful effects of climate disruption and protect collective activities.
The scientific community as a whole must integrate environmental challenges into education and research in order to design and support solutions for resilience and adaptation to climate change.
The third Conference on Eco-materials in Africa (CEMA2024) therefore sought to bring together stakeholders working on research and development in the use of local eco-materials.
Recycling and adding value to by-products and waste, eco-design and the development of eco-products formed a central theme of the conference.
This issue makes a clear contribution to scientific and technological development in Africa and elsewhere. The availability of natural base materials is also a major asset in several regions of the world working to develop new functional eco-materials.
According to Samuel Ikogou, CEMA2024 aimed to bring together multidisciplinary and multisectoral expertise, which was clearly one of the originality and strengths of the scientific event. The meeting sought to create a broad space for exchange and reflection involving researchers from fields including chemistry, biology, materials, mechanics, thermal science, acoustics, plastics engineering, civil engineering, manufacturing, architecture, agri-food and geology.
CEMA2024 also aimed to establish a genuine advice and expertise platform bringing academic stakeholders together with research, technology-transfer and institutional actors. Ultimately, this could support the development of local economic activity. “For environmental, economic and social reasons, developing eco-materials from natural products is an important focus and a major scientific research challenge at both academic and industrial level,” Samuel Ikogou stated.
The conference work was organised into sessions on the use of local materials, mechanical and physical characterisation, eco-material production processes, identifying new bioresources and nature-based solutions (biomimicry).
Source: https://cema2024.sciencesconf.org/
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