[:id]Microbiology Student Achieved Funding on Oil Palm Student Research Competition[:]

[:id]A group of microbiology student from batch 2013 which is consisted of five members of students named Muhammad Syukron, Agatha Nabila Lestari, Indiani Sani, Lazuardy Fachry and Jayen Aris Kriswantoro were being qualified as one of the top chosen 20 finalist in Oil Palm Student Research Competition. This competition was highly competitive as being followed by several different universities across Indonesia.  By getting in as a chosen finalist, their group was granted a funding for their research.

In this year, the research competition took theme which is focus into seven major topics mainly based on utilization of palm oil plant and its derivate products, including the waste generated, and its upstream and downstream processing.  The goal of this research is about to explore the potential and benefit from palm oil as the main plant commodity in Indonesia.

From two proposals that had been submitted into the competition, it is only one that getting qualification from the committee and it was the one that focused on ‘bioenergy’. The proposed research was being titled as “Standardization of Palm Oil Mill Effluent Fermentation Process in Wastewater Treatment System to Optimize Production of Methane Gas as Alternative Fuel”. Their study aimed to isolate and optimize the natural methanogenic bacteria culture from POME and conducting optimization for the fermentation process by measure several parameter including Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Dissolved Solid (TDS), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) , Volatile Fatty acids (VFA), the consumption rate of acetic acid and pH.

As a next step, they have been planned to do their research until November 2016. After that, there will be a presentation for their works on next december before the final results of best project is being announced on December 23th, 2016.  Hopefully, their team can make it and get the best results.

Two of the Oil Research Competitions’ Winners: Jayen (Left) and Syukron (Right).

Two of the Oil Research Competitions’ Winners: Jayen (Left) and Syukron (Right).