Day 227 Task – Evaluating A Research Grant Proposal

It is very rare that get task such as to evaluate a research grant since it is normally given to Associate Professors and Professors only. But, yesterday I received an email invitation to review a research grant which is very relevant to my expertise and I am so excited to evaluate it. I got some time today and I managed to review, comment and submit my comments and verdict for the proposal. I do hope to be given more research proposal review in future.

Read all my “1 Official Task Per Day Record Challenge for 2020” —> https://people.utm.my/zakiyamani/category/1-activity-1-day/ 

Day 82 Task – FRGS Correction and Finalizing METE1153

I thought my FRGS initial correction was fine, but I received a message that it still require some touch of correction. Well, that’s fine. I just spent some time to view and scrutinize the part that require corrections. I uploaded more quotations on the research materials as well as corrected some part of my V29000 descriptions. Nothing major. Luckily i managed to complete the correction and resubmit the FRGS proposal once again.

On top of the FRGS improvement efforts, I also redesigned the Course Information for Occupational Safety for Energy Systems (METE1153). This is course is going to be designed in such way that Micro-Credential (MC) will be integrated together with the course offered. I found this interesting and it ended up that I reshuffled all the originally designed weekly plan of the course. I am happier with the outcome. Alhamdulillah.

 

Read all my “1 Official Task Per Day Record Challenge for 2020” —> https://people.utm.my/zakiyamani/category/1-activity-1-day/

Unexpected Prospectful Research Meeting

It is an interesting day today. I had a meeting with great and powerful researchers. Prof. Dr. Hadi Nur and Assoc Prof Dr. Oki Muraza came down to meet up with me at my new office. I strongly believe the discussion will give birth to a dynamic strong synergetic research team. For now, I would not reveal our future collaborative research project. Let’s see what will happen soon.

chemical-engineering-research

From left: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Oki Muraza (King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals), Prof. Dr. Hadi Nur (Ibnu Sina Institute, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia), and me

Research University Grant Scheme Tier 1 ~ Research Abstract (2014 – 2016)

DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SUSTAINABLE ACYL ACCEPTOR FOR BIODIESEL PRODUCTION FROM PFAD

Executive Summary of Research Proposal (PY/2014/02061)

Biodiesel is a clean burning fuel produced from renewable domestic sources such as vegetable oils and animal grease. It is biodegradable, non-inflammable,
non-toxic and has a favorable combustion–emission profile, producing much less carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and unburned hydrocarbons than
petroleum-based diesel. The production of first generation biodiesel has grown tremendously over the past decade. InMalaysia’s context, the government has
encouraged the production of biodiesel by providing numerous incentives. In 2006, 60 biodiesel manufacturing licenses were approved. Unfortunately, almost all
biodiesel plants utilizing vegetable oil as feedstock were later forced to shut down their operation due to the sudden increasing price of vegetable oil. As a result,
substantial number of biodiesel plants were left idle, some even sold as scrap metal. Such scenario could be overcome by utilizing a cheaper and sustainable
feedstock. Palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) could be the answer to a commercially viable biodiesel production. Hence, production of fatty acid ester (FAE) from
PFAD containing high free fatty acids (FFA) was investigated in this work. Batch esterifications of PFAD were carried out to study the influence of reaction
temperatures of 70–100 °C, molar ratios of sustainable acyl acceptors to PFAD of 0.4:1–12:1, quantity of catalysts of 0–5.50% (wt of catalyst/wt of PFAD) and
reaction times of 15–240 min. Optimum conditions, reaction kinetics and mass transfer activities will be investigated. It is expected that the amount of FFA to
reduced from more than 90% to below 5% at the end of the esterification process. FAE will be further purified with alkaline medium and the final biodiesel product
will be tested in accordance to quality standard ASTM D6751-02.