How Chemical Engineers Can Help to Discover Super Food for Survival

A few days ago, I have read a website and some articles about forgotten survival food. It kept me thinking if I am prepared or not if the day we live now become a chaotic scenario, havoc, crisis, emergency, or suddenly a war occurred. Are we ready? Do we have the stock food to keep on surviving?

I’m a Chemical Engineering educator and am constantly involved in research work. It made me think if I have sufficiently thought of improving the great list of survival food introduced by Art Rood. Personally, I think chemical engineers have an amazing role to play in this.

Here is what I think Chemical Engineers can do…

Chemical engineers can play a crucial role in the discovery of superfoods for survival by using their knowledge and skills to develop new methods for growing and processing food. They can also use their expertise in chemical processes to analyze the nutritional content of different foods and identify those with the highest levels of essential nutrients.

  1. Developing sustainable food production methods: Chemical engineers can use their knowledge of bioprocessing and agricultural engineering to develop new methods for growing food that is more sustainable and efficient.
  2. Identifying nutrient-rich foods: Chemical engineers can use their knowledge of food chemistry to analyze the nutritional content of different foods and identify those with the highest levels of essential nutrients.
  3. Developing new food preservation techniques: Chemical engineers can use their knowledge of food science and preservation techniques to develop new methods for preserving food that is more effective and efficient.
  4. Optimizing food processing methods: Chemical engineers can use their knowledge of chemical processes to optimize the methods used to process food, making it more nutritious, safe, and less wasted.
  5. Developing food fortification: Chemical engineers can use their knowledge of food chemistry and nutrition to develop new methods for fortifying food with essential nutrients, making it a “superfood” for survival.

In summary, chemical engineers can use their knowledge and skills to develop sustainable food production methods, identify nutrient-rich foods, develop new food preservation techniques, optimize food processing methods and develop food fortification to help in discovering superfoods for survival.

2022 Day 307 – Attended Best Post Graduate Award Virtual Ceremony

It was indeed a historic day for many of the well deserved and chosen Post Graduate (PG) who were granted an award of excellence for their respective category. Two of my students were blessed as they was awarded best student. Dr. Sehar Taslim was awarded best student for PhD in Environmental Engineering while Ari Firmansyah was awarded Best Student for MSC in Process Plant Management. Congrats to both of them. 

Sistem Kehadiran UTM – ihadir.utm.my

Hakikatnya, UTM sangat keterhadapan dalam Sistem IT dan teknologinya. Antaranya adalah sistem kehadiran iHadir UTM yang mudah dan sistematik. Staf UTM boleh dengan mudah Slide in untuk check-in dan check-out asalkan berada dalam kawasan UTM. 

Link untuk slide sistem kehadiran ihadir.utm.my adalah seperti di bawah.

http://ihadir.utm.my

Selamat bekerja ye! Janganlah kita berkira-kira dengan pekerjaan kita. Kadang-kadang kita kerja kurang di UTM, jangan lupa top-up atau gantikan masa bekerja tersebut di rumah. Yang penting perlu jujur amanah dan berikan sumbangan terbaik kerana Allah. Niatkan kerja kita sebagai ibadah.

Ni dia link sekali lagi ===> http://ihadir.utm.my

Technology Forum: The U.S Military’s Forgotten Horn of Plenty

Think about this… How can chemical engineers like us help in the development of superfood, for survival?

Why is it important? What is it for? 

With this superfood, you could keep your whole family well-fed on just 0.5$ a day for months on end. It’s probably the most nutritious food on Earth that doesn’t require refrigeration. The army invented it during the Cold War to help America survive a nuclear attack by the Soviets. And today, an ex-cook will unearth its secret formulation for the first time.

The U.S. Military Forgotten Horn of Plenty

The most amazing aspect is that this superfood requires only run-of-the-mill ingredients you probably already have in your pantry. You just need to know how to combine them in the right amounts. A feat that cost the army hundreds of experiments and millions of dollars.

The Lost Superfood of the Cold War

 

2022 Day 297 – 4-Days Problem-Based Learning Training

Today is the beginning of a 4-days Problem-Based Learning (PBL) training that is conducted at DEwan Seminar Jasmin, Institute of Biotechnology Development (IBD), Block N23, UTM

2022 Day 296 – Introduction to Engineering (ITE) Meeting No. 4 for This Semester

The semester has been quite full of surprise in terms of the holidays and sudden break announcements. It has disrupted our early planning which was honestly I can say a very detail one. We were lucky because the 2 Sunday breaks (due to JDT winning the league and also Deepavali) did not affected us. However the PRU14 election heavily effected us as we lost 3 hours of class – the class on Thursday (1 hour) and Monday (2 hours).

Other lecturers may sneer at us, hinting that we maybe very uptight or strict, something like that. But the truth is we carefully planned and designed the course almost to perfection. We designed and synchronized 3 courses – that are Introduction to Engineering (ITE), Industrial Seminar and Profession (ISP) and Introduction to Computer Programming (ICP). ICP will be integrated later at the mid of the semester. But for ITE and ISP, the planning and integration commenced from the 1st week of the semester.

Today’s meeting managed to resolved the lost of 3 hours (due to PRU). We created an alternative measure. InsyaAllah everything will be fine and on track. I really appreciate the team work among us, the ITE and ISP lecturers, and also ICP lecturers too, which will heavily participate in discussion later.

Our intention is purely to deliver the best for the student. To bring the best out from them. It maybe tough, it maybe painful and hurtful, but we can observe the impact it gives to the students at the end of the semester. The students will in great and better shape in terms of their important skills – Communication, Critical thinking, Leadership, and others. 

Other tasks of the day:

  • Attended eLPPT roadshow
  • Borrowed gas sampling bag
  • Prepared Dewan Seminar Jasmin, IBD for PBL training tomorrow
  • Meeting with 2 Phd students (Areen and Mohamed)
  • Superfood Project

2022 Day 295 – RADIS Incentive Claim Publication Submission

In order to encourage researchers in UTM to write and publish in reputable journal, incentive claim has been introduce several years ago. It started more or less when UTM was given the Research University status. The incentive for journal paper publication back then was lucrative, for example Q1 journal will receive RM5000. Scopus journal will receive RM200. Citation will receive RM50, if I am not mistaken. That was quite some time ago.

Nowadays, the incentive claim depends on budget and the amount has been reduced. It has been very competitive as well. Q1 and Q2 journal paper will receive RM2000 and RM1500, respectively. There’s no longer any incentive for Scopus publication and also citation.

Alhamdulillah, the announcement for new Incentive Claim publication was announced and released 1-2 months ago. I have 2 journal papers that I submitted for the incentive claim. However, I’m not sure if the application will be reimburse this year since there are so many researchers who have so many journals who are waiting for the incentive claim budget and payment. InsyaAllah if there’s rezeki, there will be something for me and the team.  

AIP Conference Proceeding for RCEE2020 & RHeD2020 Successfully Published

Alhamdulillah, after a long wait, the proceeding for Regional Conference on Engineering Education 2020 (RCEE2020) and Research in Higher Education 2020 (RHeD2020) has successfully been published 2 days ago (26th October 2022). There are 51 papers in the theme of engineering education and STEM that were published in this Scopus Indexed Conference Proceeding.

Personally for me, I have 3 papers published in this conference proceeding as co-author, as shown below. Alhamdulillah. The links are:

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0072811

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0079393

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0072469

RCEE2020 & RHeD2020 was organized by Centre for Engineering Education (CEE) UTM and Society of Engineering Education Malaysia (SEEM) and conducted virtually. InsyaAllah RCEE2022 will be conducted by UNDIP and UNS in Indonesia with UTM CEE as main partner.

 

2022 Day 178 – Training of Trainers (TOT) of Outcomed-Based Education (OBE) Day 2

Early today seems to be quote complicated with various CEE administrative issues, but I have to stay calm and organize everything. However life goes on and it needs to keep going.

At 8.45am, the TOT OBE training started. This is a 2-days OBE training (Day number 2) involving lecturers from UNDIP and UNS. UTM CEE Team lead by Head of Project, Prof. Khairiyah conducted the program. We hope that a good number of lecturers will be OBE champions in Indonesia.

2022 Day 96 Task – My Grant Management

Other tasks of the day:

  • Engineering Identity Contract grant extension for
  • Finalized the date for SPC’22 meeting
  • Responded on the invitation for Reflective Talk
  • Reviewed a Frontier Journal Paper