By Udeme Akpan

Across Nigeria, millions of households still cook on open fires, burning wood in smoky pits that fill kitchens with soot and lungs with poison. Women and children, who spend the most time near the hearth, bear the heaviest health burden.

Families also pay dearly in firewood costs, while forests shrink under the relentless demand for cooking fuel. Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that three billion people still rely on unsafe fuels for cooking, contributing to over four million premature deaths every year. The need for affordable, sustainable clean energy has never been more urgent.

In the midst of this crisis, a Nigerian engineer has emerged as one of the country’s most inventive problem-solvers. Engr. Martin Ifeanyi Mbamalu, Chief Engineer and Head of the Process Engineering & Renewable Energy Product Development Unit at the National Engineering Design Development Institute (NEDDI), under NASENI, has built a track record of creating practical technologies that move from concept to community impact. His career reflects not only invention, but also recognition and leadership in projects that push Nigeria toward cleaner, smarter energy systems.

Mbamalu’s journey began with a simple but powerful idea: a stove that uses less wood while producing more heat. His Firewood-Saving Stove (FWSS), built to solve the dual problems of smoke inhalation and forest depletion, first captured national attention in 2017 at the Ola Ndi Igbo Innovation Fair, where it won the Best Innovation and Invention Award. The following year, it secured twice the Presidential Standing Committee on Inventions and Innovations (PSCII) Award, one of Nigeria’s top honors for inventors. This recognition placed him in the company of distinguished Nigerian innovators such as the late Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu and Dr. Yemi Osifodunrin.

What set the FWSS apart was its transition from idea to proven technology. In controlled laboratory testing, the stove delivered 74.8 percent thermal efficiency compared to barely 25 percent for traditional open fires. Families using it cut firewood consumption by nearly 60 percent and drastically reduced smoke exposure. Surveys among rural households showed that cooking became faster, kitchens cleaner, and expenses lower. By addressing health, environmental, and economic challenges at once, the stove quickly became more than a prototype — it became a lifeline.

It was this success that made Mbamalu the natural choice for more complex national assignments.

In 2022, Kura Waste Solution & Services Ltd approached NEDDI with a difficult request: to design an incinerator that could dry and burn wet food waste from restaurants while using minimal fuel. The project was handed to Mbamalu. Drawing on principles he had refined in the FWSS particularly the draw tube and efficiency sheet design, he scaled the concept into an industrial chamber. He then integrated artificial intelligence predictive modeling to control oxygen and fuel mixing with precision.

Working with advanced tools such as MATLAB and ANSYS, he supervised every stage: design, simulation, refinement, and fabrication. His oversight extended to the installation itself, ensuring successful deployment at the Blue Pearl Hotel & Residence in Benin City via Kura waste solution and services LtD. The results were striking. The incinerator achieved 98 percent uniform dehydration of wet waste in the secondary chamber, followed by complete combustion in the primary chamber. It prevented methane emissions and leachate pollution, reduced institutional fuel costs, and cut the expense of waste hauling to landfills.

The system’s impact went far beyond the hotel. It became a benchmark for how AI and indigenous engineering could merge to tackle Nigeria’s waste problem sustainably.

Institutionally, it boosted NASENI’s reputation and advanced its “3Cs Strategy”Creation, Collaboration, and Commercialization by proving the value of public–private partnerships.

Following the Benin success, Mbamalu was tasked with high-profile collaborations at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU). There, his leadership produced three groundbreaking platforms. The first was an AI-driven continuous rice husk gasifier, which solved the age-old problem of tar fouling through two major innovations: a Hot Electrostatic Precipitator and a Catalytic Monolith. Together, they cut tar by 95 percent and boosted syngas yield by 20 percent. For COOU, this became Nigeria’s first teaching and research platform that could directly compare AI-controlled versus manual biomass gasification.

Next came the Plastic Pyrolysis Plant, designed to turn waste plastics into diesel-range fuel. Under his direction, the system incorporated a catalytic condenser cartridge, a passive mini-fractionator, and a wiped-film condenser. These mechanical breakthroughs, paired with AI-supervised controls, raised diesel yield from 40 to 55 percent while ensuring consistent quality. In a country battling plastic pollution, the plant offered both a scalable waste solution and a powerful educational tool.

Finally, he delivered the Smart Bin Project, a smaller but no less significant system. Built with Arduino Nano control, adaptive calibration, and overflow safeguards, it became a teaching tool for embedded systems and a practical model for universities and municipalities grappling with waste management.

Taken together, these projects strengthened COOU’s position as a hub for renewable energy research and reinforced NEDDI/NASENI’s role as Nigeria’s federal center of excellence. More importantly, they showed that indigenous engineering, when paired with AI and local ingenuity, can deliver technologies on par with international standards.

What distinguishes Mbamalu’s work is not only its technical depth but its measurable impact. Environmentally, his systems reduce CO₂ emissions, slow deforestation, and prevent harmful methane releases. Economically, they save households money, cut institutional operating costs, and create jobs. Educationally, they provide Nigeria’s first AI-driven teaching platforms in gasification and pyrolysis, allowing students to publish reproducible research. Institutionally, they enhance NASENI’s visibility and validate its federal mandate to drive industrialization through indigenous innovation.

From village kitchens in Enugu to international recognition, Engr. Martin Ifeanyi Mbamalu has shown that Nigerian engineers can produce world-class, AI-augmented renewable energy systems. His trajectory spanning national awards, leadership roles, and collaborations that turned challenges into landmark innovations underscores the potential of homegrown ingenuity to tackle urgent problems.

As Nigeria pushes toward industrialization and sustainable energy, his work offers a powerful lesson: when vision meets science, indigenous solutions can transform not just communities, but the future of an entire nation.