Winners announced at eighth IChemE Singapore Awards

THE National University of Singapore (NUS), Shell and Croda were amongst the winners at the eighth IChemE Singapore Awards, held on 19 October at the Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore.

IChemE director of South East Asia Mike Cloke hosted the event, which celebrates the achievements of the chemical engineering community in Singapore.

A team from NUS won the Energy Award for developing a cost-effective way of producing hydrogen from rainwater through a combination of electrolysis, photocatalysis and photovoltaic cells using solar energy. The ‘tri-hybrid’ system can produce 100–120 L/h of hydrogen with a purity of 99.8%.

The Process Safety Award went to the Ministry of Manpower for its Workplace Safety and Health (Major Hazard Installations) Regulations, which aim to prevent major accidents and safeguard lives, the environment and the reputation of the Singapore chemical industry. The Ministry of Manpower worked with major hazard installations, trade associations and government agencies to implement the regulations.

Croda Singapore took home the Training and Development Award for its programme in leadership behavioural safety, in which first-line supervisors are trained in managing safety behaviour consistently and which fosters a culture of caring for people, communities and the environment around manufacturing sites.

The Sustainable Technology Award was presented to the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences, which has developed a sustainable pharmaceutical supply chain for the early stages of drug development.

A joint team from Singapore Polytechnic and RMIT University won the Biotechnology Award for their project to use large-scale bioremediation technology to thermally clean up oil-contaminated soil.  

Two individual awards are also given out on the night. Hu Yu, from Shell Eastern Petroleum, was named the Young Industrialist of the Year. She discovered a new way to convert vacuum tower overhead slop oil into diesel, saving the company US$250,000/y in operating costs. A graduate of NTU, she was also recognised for her technical ability.

The 2017 Young Chemical Engineering is Research is Ong Wee Jun who joined the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in 2016 after obtaining his PhD from Monash University. He was recognised for his breakthrough in the fabrication of visible light-responsive photocatalysts for water splitting, which mimic plant photosynthesis.

Joe Eades, chair of IChemE’s Singapore board, congratulated the winners, saying that their achievements are “great examples of why chemical and process engineering matters in Singapore”. He added: “We have been hosting the IChemE Awards in Singapore since 2010. I’m delighted that we continuously celebrate the success of both industry and academia in this great nation. I look forward to recognising the talent and creativity of our engineers for many more years to come.”

Visit the IChemE website for more information about the winners.

All the winners at the Singapore and Malaysia ceremonies will go forward to the relevant category in the IChemE Global Awards, which take place on 2 November in Birmingham, UK.