Driving a Sustainable University-Industry Partnership

There has been a lot of emphasis on the need for academia-industry collaboration. A successful and sustainable academia-industry partnership can result from a university’s efforts in driving values in its collaboration with industry. This chapter describes a model for mainstreaming a sustainable university partnership with industry through the university’s academic curriculum. The University-Industry Innovation eXchange (UNIX) internship program is a project-based industrial training scheme that is integrated with research projects to provide students with an engaging experience of working with industry for up to one year to solve practical industrial problems. Successful implementation of UNIX projects within the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s (UTM) work-based curriculum contributes toward nurturing life-ready and job-ready graduates, development of resilient and sustainable organisation through improved operations, and enhanced university-industry partnership

Production decision support system for multi-product with multiple different size processors

Aggregate planning is an operational activity with the objective of providing upfront information on quantity of material to be procured and resources to be secured. At a point of time, it might also influence both demand and supply. This is where the sales division will work closely with operation on aggregate planning to deliver maximum profit. Aggregate planning does not only serve as a master plan for the production planner, it is also closely linked to organisational decision-making. Realising its importance, researchers have worked on this subject consistently since 1950s but due to complexity and practicality issue, industry did not manage somehow to adopt the research work. In 2016, the concept of Production Decision Support System (PDSS) was introduced following the Pinch Analysis extended into supply chain area. In this work, the PDSS is applied to a batch industry case which involve multi-products with multiple different size processors. From the assessment, the PDSS has not only demonstrated its practicality but also helped the plant to realise their potential capacity. This has assisted the plant management to realign the strategy and avoided the original intention of expensive expansion

Holistic approach for design of minimum water networks using the Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) technique

Minimum fresh water consumption and wastewater generation in a facility can be achieved when all options for water minimization including source elimination, reduction, reuse/recycle, outsourcing, and regeneration have been considered. This work presents the development of a new generic mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model to holistically minimize fresh water consumption and wastewater generation for systems involving multiple contaminants where the various options for water minimization are simultaneously considered in order to ultimately generate a minimum water utilization network. The MILP model proposed in this work can be used to simultaneously generate the minimum water targets and design the minimum water network for global water-using operations for buildings and industry. This work also includes cases where fresh water concentrations for all contaminants are assumed to be either zero or non-zero. The approach has been successfully implemented in case studies involving an urban building (Sultan Ismail Mosque, UTM) and a manufacturing plant (a chlor-alkali plant)

A new graphical approach for simultaneous mass and energy minimisation

Heat and mass such as water and solvents are two key utilities in process industry. Simultaneous reduction of both utilities can reduce plant capital as well as operating costs. Though there are mathematical modeling techniques that can produce global optimal solutions, graphical methods are often preferred to provide insights through visualization. This paper presents a new graphical approach named superimposed mass and energy curves (SMEC) for simultaneous mass and heat reduction applicable to both mass transfer-based and non-mass transfer-based systems. Source and demand allocation curves and heat surplus diagram are superimposed on a plot of flowrate versus mass load/temperature to guide design towards the minimum utility targets. This method provides a useful visualization tool on the simultaneous effects of mass and energy reduction. Application of the graphical procedure on case studies involving water and ammonia solvents achieved the minimum mass consumption and near optimal energy usage

Controllability analysis on delta temperature minimum to obtain operable and flexible heat exchanger network

The requirement to synthesis heat exchanger network (HEN) is to select design target, whichis temperature minimum difference (ΔTmin). The purpose of ΔTmin is to optimize betweencapital cost and energy recovery. Currently, research on 8Tmin effects on HEN is commonlyassociated with the design outcomes such as energy recovery and cost. There are severalresearch studies on the effect of 8Tmin towards HEN design. An optimal ΔTmin for heatexchanger network is set between 5oC to 50oC, (Kemp, 2011). Jensen and Skogestad (2008)explained about specified 8Tmin effect on the wrong decision in the design of HEN.Abdullahi (2012) has studied the effect on ΔTmin contribution for individual process streamin the heat exchanger system. Basically, HEN synthesis method using 8Tmin focus more ondesign prospective. Not so many studies on the 8Tmin effect to the controllability part.Based on a new trade-off plot proposed by Abu Bakar et al (2014), lower ΔTmin has betterdesign criteria (higher energy recovery), however, higher in total cost and lowercontrollability criteria (higher flexibility and lower sensitivity). On the other hand, higher8Tmin has lower design criteria, however, lower in total cost and higher in controllabilitycriteria

Integrated process design and control methodology for heat exchanger network

This paper explains about methodology framework development for integrated process design and control (IPDC) of heat exchanger network (HEN). In most of the IPDC HEN problems, the feasible solutions to the problems may lie in a relatively small portion of the search space due to the large number of variables and constraints involved. The ability to solve such problems depends on the effectiveness of the method of solution in identifying and locating the feasible solutions. Hence, one approach to solve this IPDC HEN problem is to apply a decomposition method. The method starts with defining the IPDC HEN problems and formulated as a mathematical programming. The IPDC HEN problem is decomposed into four hierarchical sequential stages: (i) target selection, (ii) HEN design analysis, (iii) controllability analysis, and (iv) optimal selection and verification. This method simultaneously combines the solution for both process design and process control problem by selecting a manipulated variable that represent both process design and process control which is minimum allowable temperature difference, ΔTmin. The decision on selection ΔTmin are guided by a new propose Trade-off plot that combine process design criteria and steady state process control criteria. A simple case study are used to demonstrate the methodology framework. The result shows that HEN with large ΔTmin is more flexible and easy to operate

Effect of Delta Temperature Minimum Contribution in Obtaining an Operable and Flexible Heat Exchanger Network

This paper presents the control structure decision making for heat exchanger networks (HENs) to obtain operable and flexible network. Delta temperature minimum (ΔTmin) contribution is considered in this study. Several studies have been done to determine the effect of ΔTmin-contribution on the annual cost. Usually, HENs designed without consider controllability analysis and control structure decision making. In control structure decision making analysis are done to already designed HEN. Design and controllability analysis for HEN are done seperately. Therefore, there are still lacks of studies on how the ΔTmin-contribution effects the controllability and control structure desion making. Optimal ΔTmin selection is important decision to make in the early stage to avoid inflexible and inoperable heat exchanger networks. The question that needs to be answerd here is how to determine the optimal value of ΔTmin that will have better operating conditions that satisfy process design (HEN), controllability and as well as economy. In this study, this problem will be formulated as a mathematical programming (optimizattion with constraints) and solved by decomposing it into four hierarchiacal stages: (i) target selection, (ii) HEN design analysis, (iii) controllability analysis, and (iv) optimal selection and verification. A case study plant was selected as a case study. Small value of ΔTmin was first implemented and will gradually be increased to see the effect on the operability and flexibility of a case study

Energy efficiency award system in Malaysia for energy sustainability

Many countries have organised energyawards as an instrument to promote energy efficiency (EE), to contribute towards energy sustainability and to provide a mechanism for organisations to continuously search, benchmark and acknowledge initiatives and best practices in EE. To be effective, an award system must be tailored towards the needs, the level of readiness and the acceptance of a nation. This paper presents a framework for implementation of a national EE award in the context of Malaysia. The current energy scenario and energy issues relevant to Malaysia are first highlighted to establish the premise for organising a national energy award. Models and success stories of EE awards in other countries are discussed as possible benchmarks for implementation. The results of a survey conducted on various energy stakeholders in Malaysia confirmed the needs, readiness and acceptance for a national EE award. A framework for the implementation of a Malaysian EE award is proposed based on the survey conducted, and on various models of energy award implementation worldwide

Use of pristine papaya peel to remove Pb(II) from aqueous solution

In this study, Carica papaya agro-waste (papaya peel) was employed for Pb(II) uptake from single-solute solutions. The papaya peel-derived (PP) adsorbent namely as raw-PP was employed in sets of batch experiments to evaluate its Pb(II) uptake capacity. To assess the surface characteristics of the adsorbents, the scanning electron microscope (SEM) coupled with energy disperse X-ray (EDX), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis were utilized. The removal amount of Pb(II) using the adsorbent was determined by atomic adsorption spectrometry (AAS). The effects of pH, contact time, initial concentration of Pb(II) and adsorbent dosage were investigated throughout batch processes. The pH value=3 for the Pb(II) adsorption process using the raw-PP was observed as optimum solution pH. The optimum initial concentration of Pb(II) in the solution for raw-PP adsorbent found to be 100 mg/L where the amount of Pb(II) removed was 33.82 mg/g. At the agitating time of 90 min, the adsorption processes using the developed adsorbent reached equilibrium utilizing dosages of 50 mg of raw-PP as an adsorbents. The experimental results obtained using the raw-PP exhibits the high capability and metal affinity of papaya peel waste with removal efficiency percentage of > 85 %. The evaluation results show that the equilibrium adsorption of Pb(II) was best expressed by Freundlich isotherm model (R2 > 0.99). The experimental results confirmed that raw-PP potentially can be employed as low cost adsorbent for Pb(II) uptake from aqueous solutions. The study suggests that future chemical modification of PP may offer increasing of its metal removal capacity

A process integration approach for design of hybrid power systems with energy storage

Selection of energy storage technology in hybrid power systems (HPS) is vital due to the unique advantages and capabilities offered by different storage technologies. For an optimal operation, the efficient and economical storage system for an HPS should be selected. This work introduces a new systematic generic framework to determine the most cost-effective storage technology for an HPS. A Power Pinch Analysis tool called the AC/DC modified storage cascade table has been developed to optimise the HPS by considering various storage technologies. The economics of the various types of storage modes was analysed, taking into account the associated energy losses, among others. The method was applied to two case studies with different power trends to evaluate the effect of storage efficiencies and storage form on the performance of HPS. A superconducting magnetic storage system of 26.12 kWh capacity, that gives an investment payback period of 3.6 years, is the most cost-effective storage technology for the small-scale household system in Case Study 1. For the large-scale industrial application presented in Case Study 2, the Lead-Acid battery with a capacity of 15.38 MWh gives the lowest payback period (1.43 years)