Chemical Engineering World

Today, one of my colleague, Fawzi from Libya defended his Ph.D thesis. If my calculation is correct he submitted his draft thesis to our supervisor after 2 years and 7 months. In general that is very fast duration for a Ph.D student. I'm so proud of him and his success kind of boosted my motivation. Few months before that (last year) another Ph.D student in my research group, Jawaid Akhtar from Pakistan also successfully defended his thesis and earned the title "Dr". So, within a space of 6 months, 2 Ph.D students in Chemical Reaction Engineering Group (CREG) graduated and earned their doctorate degree. Once again I would like to humbly congratulate them.

Recently, I met a lecturer while servicing my MPV. We chatted about his experience doing his Ph.D knowing I'm still in the battle. I know him and he is not the boosting or snobbish type of person. He told me that, he managed to publish 8 journals while doing his Ph.D. Yep, you heard that right. 8 journals and not 8 conference papers. Wow! I was impressed. I asked him, "How long did you take to do your Ph.D?". He responded, "I took 2 and a half years". Once again...Wow!!! That is very impressive. His VIVA took a mere 15 minutes only. The examiners just asked him some very general questions. The reason for that is because there is nothing more to be asked as he has already published massively. Indeed so good. That reminded on another ex-CREG member, my colleague, Dr. Istadi whom if I'm not mistaken published 6 or 7 journals while doing his Ph.D. But he took 4 years to complete his study. This guy, sitting next to me in the workshop, published 8 journals (with impact factor) in 2.5 years!!!

I asked him, "How did you manage to do it?" His answer was simple. He met his supervisor each week and reported whatever work he has done. In another angle, he said that his supervisor is very strict and ordered him to meet him on a weekly basis. He added that his supervisor asked him to produce 1 journal every quarterly. That answered how he can produced 8 journals in 2.5 years.

2 days ago, I met another colleague who is currently doing Ph.D in Korea. He is also a staff in the UTM. He has basically completed his Ph.D. However, he has not defended his research yet because the university in Korea only allow students to have VIVA after he or she managed to publish 3 journal papers. So far he has managed to complete his thesis and published 2 journal papers within a period of 2 years and 9 months. Another impressive record. I asked him how he did it. How he managed to complete so fast? He said that he has to work from morning till night each and everyday. He walked to the university with his wife (who has completed her Ph.D) every morning and returned together at night. They have 3 daughters who are staying in Malaysia. Since the cost of living is extremely high in Korea, they have to school their daughters in Malaysia. That means they are separated from their kids. Both of them has the drive and goal to finish the Ph.D as fast as possible so that they can be united back with their 3 beautiful daughters. Well, that's another amazing Ph.D success story.

What about me? It has been already 2.5 years for me. I'm still working and struggling on my Ph.D. One of my journal is under review. Another one is on the way. There are another 3 journals that I have to publish but they are not ready yet. I have 3 conference papers published already and 1 scopus journal in hand. I have another 1 month of experimental work to do. I have some thermodynamic modelling to work on. Comparing myself with the stories above, I'm no where yet. Nevertheless, I'm not giving up. I'm fighting to end this battle by this year, if God will. Please pray for me.

For those of you who are is currently doing Ph.D, keep up the believe and spirit. Planning is very crucial. Remember the saying, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail". For those who are in the 4th or 5th year or more (some of you are my colleagues), don't worry. Just do it. Be persistent and put in more effort. We know Ph.D is full of unexpected problems. The challenge is how we act to the test.

So, in conclusion, some aspects that are very crucial in ensuring success and speed in our Ph.D are as follows:

• Always meet and report your work to your supervisor. At least once a week.
• Set a goal and reason why you want to complete your Ph.D. That will drive and motivate you to finish your study.
• Publish your work in reputable journals with impact factors. That's like an insurance policy during the VIVA.

I'm trying to fulfill all there imperative points above. Let's do it.

I strongly believe this story is motivating and inspiring although it is short. If you like it, I appreciate it very much if you can share it by LIKE it below (with Facebook).


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A friend of mine (Dr. Mohanad El-Harbawi) from Universiti Teknologi Petronas has some research student vacancies. He is looking for 1 master and 1 PhD student with strong background in molecular chemistry, biology, quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) and MATLAB. Anyone interested in the project can send your CV to his email below. You can find out some details below:

Project’s title:
Development of Ecotoxicity Relationships to Enhance Ionic Liquids Commercialization using Green Chemistry Approach

Location:
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Chemical Engineering Department, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia

Salary: 1650 RM (525 US$)/month for master (max. 1.5 years) and 2250 RM (715 US$)/month for PhD. (max. 2.5 years)

If you are interested or would like to ask further details, please contact the following:

Dr. Mohanad El-Harbawi,
Senior Lecturer,
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Chemical Engineering Department,
Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak,
Malaysia
HP: 0122398415 | Office: 605-3687581 | Fax: 605-3656176
Email: mohanad_elharbawi@petronas.com.my | mohanad_75@yahoo.com

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I'm now in my 5th semester and I must admit that I'm very worried with my own performance as a Ph.D student. I have basically 8 months more to complete my studies (I was given 3 years for a my full time Ph.D). Otherwise I will have to extend my study to another semester.

I am now midway in my experiments. I am also preparing several technical papers to be published in index journals. It's really not easy. The mood and motivation are always against me. Let's see today's example...

I tried to work on my technical paper draft in my office room. After several minutes I felt sleepy (I did not sleep late at night). Then, I experienced some headache. Both of this elements (sleepy + headache) makes a perfect combination to demotivate me from pursuing my work. I tried to fight the negativity. I relaxed for 2-3 minutes. Then, I thought myself...maybe I should do other work that still can contribute towards my study. I then decided to learn a new optimization method from youtube since I am going to include them in my study. So, I decided to stop working on the technical paper draft for a while and studied this new optimization method. It works... I felt energized to learn a new stuff. This is indeed a good technique which I personally discovered (maybe this is not new to you guys). I have the option of perhaps give up, rest, sleep, relax, chit-chat with my friends, drink some coffee, watch some movie in my laptop but instead I decided to work on something else which still contributes towards accomplishing and perfecting my thesis. I'm really glad to do that.

At the same time, to keep up my spirit and assure continuous momentum, I changed my desktop wall paper. It has a message that I should complete my study in the allocated time. This constantly reminds me that I have an unsettle business to complete (the Ph.D off course!!!). This is the final major hurdle that I need to conquer after the other 2 big projects which is to be a professional engineer and chartered engineer, all within a space of 3 years. Fuhhh.... it's really tough but I'm glad I managed to complete the other two.

Enough rambling for now. I'm going to continue with my work. Need to work on something... If you have any motivational quote for me, I really welcome and appreciate them very much. Thanks in advance.

p/s- The photo above shows the Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) equipment with its PC. The PC is very old. It still uses the 3.5" floppy disc. Although it is old, it is still very useful and important for me because it provide one part of my catalyst analysis. The TGA is still in good shape as it is regularly maintained.


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Last Friday, I was supposed to run my experiment. I had made the tedious preparation a day earlier so that the only think I need to do on Friday is to just start the experiment.

So, what happen on Friday?

I connected my online data logger to my laptop. I heat up the heating tape gradually. I switched on the online graph monitoring in the data logger software to monitor the temperature profile of each thermocouples fixed in several locations in my experimental rig. I saw the temperature increase for the heating tape thermocouple. However, the thermocouple temperature in the reactor did not raise (after I switched on my turbular furnace heating). This was strange. All this while, everything it's OK. So, it's trouble shooting time. I looked at the tubular furnace temperature display. To my surprise the temperature which I set to be 500oC is still maintained at 29oC. Oh my God... Is the tubular furnace spoil? I have just used it yesterday and it was just fine.


Troubleshooting the tubular furnace.

I turn off the helium gas from entering my reactor. I conditioned the GC. I then checked what's wrong with my tubular furnace. I attempted switching it on and off as well as changed the power supply socket. With the help of Mahadhir (my Ph.D colleague), we tried to play around with the temperature control display and investigated the setting and/or timer. Who knows this might be the reason the tubular furnace cannot heat up. Mahadhir also searched for the manual of this Carbolite tubular furnace and gave it to me. I spent quite some time digesting the information in the manual and try to relate it to the problem. By this time I already know that my Friday allocation for experiment is over. Worse case scenario is I have to spend another whole day to transfer my furnace (if it is spoil) with a spare furnace. That will definitely take one days work to do. We tried many things which also include the possibility of heater or filament spoil. However, deep in my heart, I believe that there must be a simple problem and a simple solution. But then, I cannot yet figure it out.

Accidental trouble shooting discovery

I almost get fed up and nearly decided to call for Carbolite engineer to come to see what is the problem. I sat on my tiny work station in the lab room. I look at my experimental rig from a distance (actually it is not that far - only about 1 meter). I wanted to see the overview of the problem and see if there is some possible solution. Then I noticed something!!!

I found that my tubular furnace was not closed and double clipped on. Oh my God... Maybe this was the culprit. I did not even close the furnace and decided to heat it up. Immediately I close the tubular furnace and clip them. I turned on the furnace heating and off it goes. The temperature increased. So, that was the thing. It was a silly mistake and a very simple solution. I just did not close the tubular reactor.

Morale of the story

I learn my lesson that day. I need to be more careful when running the experiment. It was my first silly mistake after many times running similar experiment. I also don't know why that happen. It must slipped my mind. In addition, I can also know another that the furnace heating would not turn on if it is not properly close. It took me 1 whole day to experience this... Haha..what a day...


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Seriously I'm feeling it now. Whenever I do anything, I will think and remember my unsettle Ph.D work. When I walk, drive, rest and even sleep... I still think about my research work. I hope this will be over soon... :)

This cartoon can also provide some ideas on a post graduate students life to the undergraduates. Enjoy the cartoon...

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I'm now in my 4th semester of my Ph.D studies. I will be lying if I say that doing Ph.D is easy. It's not as easy as that. I told my wife few months ago that preparing the project report for my Institution Engineers Malaysia (IEM) interview (to be a professional engineer) was tougher than doing my Ph.D. I'm wrong!!! Maybe that time, I was not really focus on my Ph.D. But now, as I'm more focus with my studies, I am well aware that completing this study is not as easy as it seems to be. It is so tough. Ask anybody who successfully completed their Ph.D... Nobody says it is easy.

Suddenly I felt time is very limited. I'm beginning to feel the pressure. I have more or less one year to complete my studies. I need to start working on my experiments. My experimental rig is fine and I believe it will be ok as I already tested it several times. The only concern for me is the quartz reactor that is brittle in nature. I need to keep sufficient stock of it. In addition, I also need to ensure my other equipments and consumables have spare as well. When talking about the experimentation work, the Gas Chromatography (GC) should also be in perfect condition for me and my Iranian colleague (Maryam) to analyze our products. The GC is the basically the heart of the study besides the rig reactor and process. I'm going to start my experimental work tomorrow officially and I hope everything will be fine... (Need to pray a lot!!!) OK ...enough about the experimental work.

Journal Paper... This is another thing hunting my back and consuming a huge chunk of my time. I have a draft prepared and submitted to 2 reputed publishers only to see on both occasions it got rejected for funny reasons (the first one) and out of scope reason (the second one). I admit that I felt miserable being rejected just like that. Well... I need to bounce back and fight to improve my draft paper and then send it again to other journal.

Thermodynamic modeling... Yeah...not only experimental work, I also need to work on the thermodynamic modeling of my catalytic reaction. This is quite interesting but at the same time it is my weakest part. I'm slowly working on this section and I hope I can complete this study in the next 2 months... (also, I need to pray to God a lot on this). I'm receiving some help from Maryam on this. She has been helping me when I got confuse and lost.

There are certainly a lot more to share about my research journey as a Ph.D student. I think I should reserve the rest for future sharing. For the time being, I just need to focus on my study for a while. Wish me luck... :)

Before ending... I would like to thank my other half of her undivided support for me. It is good to have a partner who is also in the same chemical engineering field. She understood what I'm doing and at the same time provided me precious input and ideas.

Also, my other colleague in the lab... All of you are great...haha...especially Emm2020...who has been next door to me in the lab...Let's finish this together!!!

p/s: Sorry if this post is not of any benefit to you guys. I just need to vent off some tense in me.



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Have you downloaded my free "Choosing Alternative Fuel" Ebook? If not, then please download it here. It's Free and on top of getting the free ebook, you'll get eCourse on Alternative Fuel. It's a good and easy way to add more valuable information to yourself.

Usually engineers meet very specific questions, which need exact answers from an expert in the area. Actually, with the advancement of internet, we have many solutions for people to find an expert and a get an answer but those are broad in scope and costly. Many solutions need your credit card, while some free options are wider in scope. It's hard to get attention on your question by an engineer as most of users of such website are young internet surfers seeks and support tech questions.

Engineers are professionals, who usually surf internet to explore new knowledge and developments on their existing knowledge. With my experience on internet for more than 4 years, I distinguish most of them even willing for contribution to expand the existing knowledge base around their expertise. I decided to take these trends as advantages to build a questions and answers community around engineers. (www.engineers.name). With leading web technologies available on SAAS (Software As a Service) it was possible to build a comprehensive question and answer platform with many attractive features for answer seekers and experts contributing to the community.

Answer seekers are able to browse for existing questions and answers base to avoid repeating already asked questions which will help them to save time, even when they typing their question the similarities will just list down under the input box. They can even browse for experts on many categories who already being ranked. They can just ask questions from community or select an expert to ask questions personally from them.

Engineers who willing to contributing as experts by answering questions will able to be ranked in their specific area and stand out the community as an expert.

Actually, this is totally free expert questions and answers solution, which is totally powered by sponsored advertisements. According to success stories of Wikipedia and many other free solutions, the platform stand with a hope to contribute to engineering world with a vision to give proper answers for engineering questions.

This article was contributed by my good chemical engineering online friend from Sri Lanka, Dilantha Thushara Subasinghe who is the Editor for Engineering Questions and Answers.

My comment: This is a good effort made by Thushara. He took the initiative to create a platform (www.engineers.name) where questions and answers related to engineering can be viewed. Anybody can participate by asking or providing answers. It's like a forum but it is not. It is more simple. Looks like a wiki-type of site. For us who are from chemical engineering field, we can read several questions related to basic questions by choosing "Chemical Engineering tab" on the side bar.


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Have you downloaded my free "Choosing Alternative Fuel" Ebook? If not, then please download it here. It's Free and on top of getting the free ebook, you'll get eCourse on Alternative Fuel. It's a good and easy way to add more valuable information to yourself.

The field is obviously Chemical Engineering which will focus on Separation Technology. To be more specific, you will explore the fundamental and science of Progressive Freeze Concentration, a field which is still not explored in Malaysia.

Financial assistance will be provided for the first few students only. So, to grab hold of this offer, you need to act fast.

Masters duration - Full time research - 2 years.
Ph.D duration - 3 years.

Interested candidate can write and send your CV to the following email address:

mazura[alias]cheme.utm.my.

Here is an example of a related study of this field...

Abstract : DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL DESIGN FOR PROGRESSIVE FREEZE CONCENTRATION PROCESS

Industrial wastewater may well be treated by freeze concentration, a process which freezes or crystallises out water content as pure ice crystals and leaves behind a highly concentrated solution in a smaller volume. In conventional suspension freeze concentration (SFC) whereice crystals formed as a suspension in the mother liquor, separation of the solid-liquid mixture is difficult and costly. The size of ice crystals is still very limited and the seeding process requires usage of scraped surface heat exchangers (SSFE), which is significantly expensive and accounted for approximately 30% of the capital cost. Progressive freeze concentration (PFC) invented later is believed to provide cost saving and simplify the subsequent ice-liquid separation as ice crystals are formed as a layer or a block on the cooling surface. Quest for a design providing convenience and good efficiencies continues, and in this study a helical structured copper crystalliser was developed and fabricated named Multi-wind Crystalliser (MWC). Effects of several operating conditions on the performance of MWC in context of wastewater treatment were then investigated including circulation flowrate, initial solution concentration, coolant temperature and circulation time. The performance of the design was evaluated by three dependent variables including the effective partition constant, K, calculated from the volume and concentration of the solid and liquid phase. Two other parameters were ice purity and solution volume reduction. A process optimisation was also performed thereafter employing STATISTICA to produce optimum conditions in favour of the stated independent variables. As the crystalliser designed involves heat transfer, the overall heat transfer coefficient was also calculated through temperature profiling subsequently generating a prediction model for ice crystal mass. At the end of the research, a new crystalliser design for PFC is established and an observation of how the operating conditions affect the performance of the system was obtained. Optimum operating conditions was determined by process optimisation and an overallheat transfer coefficients were also generated. Adequacy and reliability of the ice crystal mass prediction model produced was proven by error analyses revealing relatively small errors.


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Have you downloaded my free "Choosing Alternative Fuel" Ebook? If not, then please download it here. It's Free and on top of getting the free ebook, you'll get eCourse on Alternative Fuel. It's a good and easy way to add more valuable information to yourself.

First of all, I would like to share this good news with all of you. My wife had passed her Ph.D VIVA just now. After the tense preparation few days before, she finally made it. She is now Dr. Mazura Jusoh, researcher in Progressive Freeze Concentration (PFC), a subject under crystallization which is the subset of separation engineering. It was not easy but it went smooth. I felt the tense and waited outside the room.

The VIVA started at 9.30 am. We arrived at the examination room at 8.30 am to prepare and set up all that are necessary. The VIVA session ended at about 12.15 noon and she passed her Ph.D with minor correction.



In case you are wandering what is this research all about, here is the abstract of the study. Maybe some of you who are interested can collaborate with Dr. Mazura or become her student to further develop the PFC technology which is the first in Malaysia.

Abstract : DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL DESIGN FOR PROGRESSIVE FREEZE CONCENTRATION PROCESS

Industrial wastewater may well be treated by freeze concentration, a process which freezes or crystallises out water content as pure ice crystals and leaves behind a highly concentrated solution in a smaller volume. In conventional suspension freeze concentration (SFC) where ice crystals formed as a suspension in the mother liquor, separation of the solid-liquid mixture is difficult and costly. The size of ice crystals is still very limited and the seeding process requires usage of scraped surface heat exchangers (SSFE), which is significantly expensive and accounted for approximately 30% of the capital cost. Progressive freeze concentration (PFC) invented later is believed to provide cost saving and simplify the subsequent ice-liquid separation as ice crystals are formed as a layer or a block on the cooling surface. Quest for a design providing convenience and good efficiencies continues, and in this study a helical structured copper crystalliser was developed and fabricated named Multi-wind Crystalliser (MWC). Effects of several operating conditions on the performance of MWC in context of wastewater treatment were then investigated including circulation flowrate, initial solution concentration, coolant temperature and circulation time. The performance of the design was evaluated by three dependent variables including the effective partition constant, K, calculated from the volume and concentration of the solid and liquid phase. Two other parameters were ice purity and solution volume reduction. A process optimisation was also performed thereafter employing STATISTICA to produce optimum conditions in favour of the stated independent variables. As the crystalliser designed involves heat transfer, the overall heat transfer coefficient was also calculated through temperature profiling subsequently generating a prediction model for ice crystal mass. At the end of the research, a new crystalliser design for PFC is established and an observation of how the operating conditions affect the performance of the system was obtained. Optimum operating conditions was determined by process optimisation and an overall heat transfer coefficients were also generated. Adequacy and reliability of the ice crystal mass prediction model produced was proven by error analyses revealing relatively small errors.

Now...It's my turn to complete my Ph.D... :)

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Have you downloaded my free "Choosing Alternative Fuel" Ebook? If not, then please download it here. It's Free and on top of getting the free ebook, you'll get eCourse on Alternative Fuel. It's a good and easy way to add more valuable information to yourself.