Twin wins at IChemE Malaysia awards

SIME DARBY and PETRONAS both celebrated double wins at IChemE’s Malaysia Awards ceremony yesterday evening as the Institution marked 10 years of operating in the country.

The annual event follows its sister ceremony held in Singapore last week, forming part of IChemE’s wider global awards programme, which celebrates excellence and innovation in chemical engineering.

Palm oil giant Sime Darby won the Sustainable Technology and the Palm Oil awards for optimising its refining processes. Phosphoric acid is a major operating cost in palm oil refining where it’s used for degumming. Sime Darby’s researchers have lowered the consumption of phosphoric acid, reduced earth-bleaching costs and increased the plant throughput. The same improvements could be applied to another ten refineries.

Malaysia’s state energy major PETRONAS took home two separate awards: the Oil and Gas Award, and the Young Chemical Engineer in Industry Award. Its first was shared with Queen’s University Belfast for their collaborative work inventing a proprietary process using ionic liquids to remove mercury from condensate streams in a single step. The formulation is designed to irreversibly capture all species of mercury, and to be water resistant for enhanced robustness during plant operations. The development has a design bed life three times longer than commercial absorbents, lengthening the intervals between shutdowns.

The young engineer in industry accolade was awarded to PETRONAS Chemicals Olefins’ Anis Zafirah Binti Sipal Anuwar. Her notable achievements include reducing sampling efforts, which save the company an estimated RM350,000 (US$84,267) per year.

The winner of the second personal award was Pau-Loke Show, associate professor at the University of Nottingham’s Malaysia campus, who was given the Young Chemical Engineer in Research Award. His research focuses specifically in bioseparation engineering. He has published more than 33 research journal papers, two book chapters, holds one patent, and is the primary researcher for 12 grants projects.

Other winners include Synthomer, which took home the Chemical Engineering Industry Project of the Year Award for reducing energy use at a synthetic latex plant in Malaysia; Asean Bintulu Fertilizer won the Process Safety Award for eliminating the use of chlorine for treating cooling water; and Petrofac was awarded the Training and Development Award for helping graduates master the skills and knowledge required to build 3D plant design management systems.

IChemE’s president Jonathan Seville said: “IChemE’s purpose is to advance chemical engineering worldwide for the benefit of society, and Malaysia is no exception. Chemical engineering makes a huge contribution to the economy of this nation, and we are delighted to work with a plethora of companies to secure a pipeline of committed, competent and trusted professionals who will make the world a better place. Tonight’s ceremony has been a celebration of those trusted professionals, and I am so pleased to see such energy and passion from our Malaysian board, partners and members.”

Chair of IChemE Malaysia, Abdul Aziz Bin Abdul Raman added that the event was incredibly special as it marked IChemE Malaysia’s 10-year anniversary and was attended by IChemE Malaysia’s Royal Patron HRH Tuanku Zara Salim.

“This celebration is important because it brings unity and positivity to the profession,” he said. “Tonight’s winners should take great pride in their achievements, and I hope they will join me in helping to secure Malaysia as the hub for chemical engineering excellence in South East Asia.”

The award winners are automatically shortlisted for the IChemE Global Awards which take place in Manchester, UK on 3 November.