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

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

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

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

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)

Prediction of the solubility of caffeic acid in water using an activity coefficient model

Solubility of solid compounds is one of the most widely used physicochemical properties in chemical engineering design and experiments. Experimental works for solubility are not always possible because of the small amount of yield available in the phytochemicals extraction. Thus, one interesting perspective is the used of thermodynamic models, which are usually employed for predicting the activity coefficients in the case of solid–liquid equilibria (SLE). Phytochemical compound used in this study is caffeic acid where a comparative study of the MPP-UNIFAC and Pharma Modified UNIFAC were used to predict the solubilities of this phytochemical. The performances of these two activity coefficient models were compared using the experimental solubilities data obtained from the literature in the temperature range of 288 to 323 K and were evaluated by analysing the absolute relative errors (ARE) between the experimental and the predicted values. Moreover, the model errors were also discussed according to the functional groups of the molecules and water as the solvent. In general, the MPP UNIFAC showed better accuracy as compared to the Pharma Modified UNIFAC in predicting the solubility of caffeic acid in water. Nevertheless, both models give very poor qualitative predictions

Optimal planning of renewable energy-integrated electricity generation schemes with CO2 reduction target

This paper presents a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model that was developed for the optimalplanning of electricitygenerationschemes for a nation to meet a specified CO2 emission target. The model was developed and implemented in General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) for the fleet of electricitygeneration in Peninsular Malaysia. In order to reduce the CO2 emissions by 50% from current CO2 emission level, the optimizer selected a scheme which includes Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC), nuclear and biomass from landfill gas and palm oil residues. It was predicted that Malaysia has potential to generate up to nine percent of electricity from renewableenergy (RE) based on the available sources of RE in Malaysia

Assessing the role of religiosity on the behavioral intention to buy islamic insurance / Shah Rizal Zambahari … [et al.]

Insurance industry in Malaysia has experience tremendous growth since its inception during colonial period between the 18th and 19th centuries. Market penetration of life insurance, as measured in terms of the total number of policies in force to total population, grew to 39.3% as at end-June (end-June 2006: 38.7%) (The Star, September 8, 2007). But less than 7% of Malaysians are covered by family takaful plans in 2006 although 52 percent of the Malaysian population constitutes Muslim. This research was conducted to identify the level of awareness among Malays toward the importance of life insuranc