Overview

National Chemical Engineering Exposure Camp (NCEEC) 2023 was organised by IChemE-UM Student Chapter, recognised by the Ministry of Education (MOE/KPM) Malaysia and partnered with IChemE's Palm Oil Processing Special Interest Group (POPSIG), in conjunction with Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC).

Objectives

NCEEC

• The programme aimed to facilitate the exposure of pre-university students to Chemical Engineering course, profession and IChemE-UMSC.

POPSIG session

• To explain the roles of chemical engineer in the palm oil industry to the pre-university students.
• To understand the contributions of palm oil industry to the UN SDGs.
• To recognise the roles of chemical engineer in addressing SDG3, SDG7, SDG8, SDG12, SDG13.
• To develop the leadership skills among the pre-university students.
• To understand sustainable palm oil processing in industry.

Speeches

Professor Ir Dr Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Malaya
Professor Abdul Aziz highlighted that chemical engineering is all about the production of materials that we use every day. He shared that chemical engineering profession is more than just about chemistry. He hoped this programme can be helpful to the students to understand better about chemical engineering sector.

Saw Xukai, President of IChemE-Universiti Malaya Student Chapter 2022-2023
President Saw first expressed his sincere gratitude to the participants for joining the first in-person NCEEC. NCEEC would be meaningful to all participants as it provided the overview on Chemical Engineering as a degree and as a profession before the students decided their future career pathways. He hoped all the participants can enjoy the programme and gain insightful information during the two-day events.

POPSIG session: The Secret of the Palm Oil Wonderland

Hemavathi Silvamany, Senior Engineer at Sime Darby Plantation Research Sdn Bhd, first introduced to the participants about the upstream and downstream businesses at Sime Darby Plantation Berhad.

She shared that the global vegetable oil consumption is expected to grow by 60% by 2050, driven by food and increase in energy intake demand. In 2022, Malaysia exported about 31% of the world's palm oil export.

Sustainable palm oil production has become the solution to the pressing issues. The sustainable palm oil reduces poverty (SDG1), supports affordable food prices (SDG7), protects biodiversity (SDG14 & SDG15), and safeguards social interests (SDG10 & SDG11).

Hemavathi highlighted that palm oil is widely used to feed 3 billion people in more than 150 countries worldwide. It was projected to feed another 2 billion people by the end of 2050. Palm oil is an irreplaceable part of the global food supply chain. It was expected to account for 55% of the global edible oil consumption in the next 35 years.

Chemical engineers play important roles in making the processes more sustainable and safer to improve the quality of life. The advancement in palm oil mill processing aims to produce high-quality crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel (PK), and to maximise oil extraction rate (OER).

She justified that in chemical engineering, the sustainability and environment-related modules educate about the optimisation of resource usage and the conversion of waste to wealth.

Document

View the summary (PDF) of the event.
View the event photos (PDF).

Palm oil quiz

Congratulations to the winners of the palm oil quiz. The report will be published in POPSIG Newsletter Issue 23 (2023).

Image

Hemavathi Silvamany (3rd left, speaker at POPSIG session) received the souvenir from Liu Jun Jie (2nd left, Director of NCEEC 2023) together with Koay Zhi Long (1st left, Vice Director of NCEEC 2023).

Acknowledgement

POPSIG appreciated the organisation provided by IChemE-UM Student Chapter and NCEEC organising committee at Universiti Malaya.

POPSIG gratefully acknowledges the support provided by Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) to POPSIG-MPOC Palm Oil Educational Roadshow.