From left: Dr Mathialagan, Chin Aik, Chung, Tay, Weng Woh, and Dr Yamuna
Four UTAR Faculty of Engineering and Green Technology (FEGT) research projects by final year students made an impressive medal haul in the Novel Research & Innovation Competition (NRIC) 2015 held at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) from 15 to 18 August 2015.
The four winning research projects consisted of two teams from the Faculty's Department of Petrochemical Engineering, which bagged a gold medal and a bronze medal respectively, and another two teams from the Department Environmental Engineering. These two respective teams also took home a gold medal and a bronze medal each.
Joining the competition for the first time upon invitation by the USM Student Representative Council, each research team was supervised by an FEGT lecturer. The participants were required to present their research work to the audience and selected panel of judges. All four research projects from UTAR stood out amongst a total of 146 research projects ranging from engineering to applied sciences by final year students from 14 local universities and two universities from Thailand.
Petrochemical Engineering final year students Tay Yi Hui and Leong Weng Woh were over the moon when their research project titled "Development of Poly(vinylidene) Fluoride (PVDF)/Graphene Oxide (GO) Nanocomposite Membrane for Oily Wastewater Filtration" was announced as a gold medal winner. "Our research has successfully developed a membrane which shows increment in both water flux and rejection rate for oily wastewater filtration. This is a great step for industries such as petroleum and petrochemical which produce large amounts of oily wastewater and require filtration before discharging," Weng Woh elucidated.
According to the team, the method of fabricating the membrane has already been patented and the membrane has been commercialised by HVW Technologies, a Singapore-based company which provided financial support for the research. "We believe that the novelty, usefulness, and commercialisation of the membrane have met the main criteria of the competition, which contributed to our success," Tay added. The research project was supervised by FEGT Head of Department of Petrochemical Engineering, Assoc Prof Dr Yamuna a/p Munusamy.
"Development of New Bio-filler for Thermoplastic from Waste Eggshell" was the other research entry from the Department of Petrochemical Engineering which earned students Chung Chen Seng and Lim Chin Aik a bronze medal. "Eggshell powder (ESP) has gained enormous attention in the polymer industry due to its high calcium carbonate content. This shows a great potential to substitute conventional mineral filler. Moreover, due environmental concerns over sustainability, utilisation of finite resources for material science has shifted to renewable resources.
