Professors Graham Kendall and Ian Harrison signing The University of Nottingham and FELDA collaboration agreement.
The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus signed a Collaboration Agreement to develop the next generation of palm oil mills and refineries with FELDA and Unitesystem.
Through the collaboration, the University will be providing the latest state of the art technology to be applied to the creation of a high productivity, zero emission, zero discharge food grade oil mill cum refinery which can be mobile and cost effective as well.
“This partnership is an example of collaboration of Nottingham, a research led university works with key industries and commercial organisations in Malaysia to offer research and knowledge expertise in critical areas,” said Professor Graham Kendall, Vice Provost (Research and Knowledge Transfer) of The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.
The success of this collaboration will attest to the contribution and knowledge transfer that the University can impart to Malaysia and which will have a significant impact on the future economic development of the country as well.
The technologies to be tested in the pilot schemes include the ultrasonic cavitation based oil-water separation system, the continuous water sterilisation system, the recycling of water through a membrane/hydrodynamic cavitation system, the refining of CPO to refined edible oil using an advanced membrane system, power generation through a gasification system, extraction of bio-nutrients from the various processes into pharmaceutical grade products and nano-technology for the processing of liquid fertilizers.
The palm oil industry is a major industry in Malaysia and Indonesia but due to the shortage of land for new plantations there is a great urgency to increase the productivity.
The present palm oil milling technology has room for improvement as the current method has little difference in operation with mills run 50 years ago. The challenges facing the palm oil mills include the lack of green and efficient technologies resulting in the inefficiency of power utilisation, huge amount of palm oil mill effluent ─ which is still a serious environmental threat ─ and a high carbon footprint due to the massive effluent ponds. Additionally, palm oil mills can only produce crude palm oil but not refined edible oil, and crude palm oil has to be sent to the oil refineries located at the ports, thus adding to the higher logistics cost and inefficiency.
FELDA is the largest oil palm company in Malaysia and one of the largest in the world with more than 860,000 ha of plantations in Malaysia. It has over 70 oil mills and six refineries and their products are exported throughout the world.
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Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham, described by The Sunday Times University Guide 2011 as ‘the embodiment of the modern international university’, has award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and the QS World University Rankings. It was named ‘Europe’s greenest university’ in the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking, a league table of the world’s most environmentally-friendly higher education institutions, which ranked Nottingham second in the world overall.
The University is committed to providing a truly international education for its 40,000 students, producing world-leading research and benefiting the communities around its campuses in the UK and Asia.
More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, with almost 60 per cent of all research defined as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. Research Fortnight analysis of RAE 2008 ranked the University 7th in the UK by research power. The University’s vision is to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy and sustainability, and health.
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Released by The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. More information on the partnership is available from Dr. Sivakumar Manickam, Sivakumar.Manickam@nottingham.edu.my, Faculty of Engineering of The University Nottingham Malaysia Campus on +603 8924 8156, or Josephine Dionisappu, josephine.dionisappu@nottingham.edu.my on +603 8924 8746.
More news from the University at: www.nottingham.edu.my/NewsEvents/News
Posted on 17th October 2011