Prof Lukhanyo Mekuto

Prof Mekuto is a member of the Water Institute of South Africa and the International Water Association, and he specialises in environmental bioprocess engineering and biotechnology. His research interests are in bioremediation or biological wastewater treatment, biorecovery of metals from electronic waste and biotransformation of expired pharmaceuticals for cancer treatment. He has published in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, and also serves as a reviewer of the following journals: Journal of Hazardous Materials, RSC Advances, Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, Chemosphere, Water research and others. He is an alternate member of the UJ Engineering Faculty Committee and Higher Degree Committee. He is also a tutor coordinator and a member of the departmental postgraduate committee within the Departmental of Chemical Enginering (UJ). He also works with the mining companies on projects that involves the remediation of cyanide containing wastewaters and also to isolate microorganisms from mine tailings and apply them for secondary metabolite production for their application in medical research. He also collaborates with internationally-acclaimed researchers from Turkey, South Korea, Iran and India.

Prof  Mekuto finished his Matric in the year 2007, in a school which is situated in Samora Machel, Cape Town, named Zisukhanyo Senior Secondary School. He received all his tertiary qualifications from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology where he received numerous accolades. He joined the University of Johannesburg in 2018, in his capacity as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, where he was later appointed as a Senior Lecturer.