UNS – Another achievement was made by students of the Chemical Engineering Study Program, Faculty of Engineering (FT) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta. A team consisting of Werna Ramadhan, Burhanuddin Yusuf Pratama, Kalimaya Qolbi Sani, and Ethan Nandika won the title of Best Paper in the 2023 Southeast Asia Paper Competition (LKTI).
The competition, which took place in mid-May 2023, was organized by the Faculty Student Activity Unit (UKMF) of the Scientific Study Group MIPA Saintis (KSI Mist) Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (UNY). In this competition, they brought up the idea of utilizing palm oil liquid waste or POME using Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology as a power generator.
“MFC is a device that uses bacteria as a catalyst to oxidize organic matter to produce an electric current. The MFC is composed of anode and cathode spaces separated by a proton exchange membrane. Primary wastewater from industries such as palm oil mill waste (POME) can be used to provide inoculums or biocatalysts for substrate oxidation,” Kalimaya, who is familiarly called Maya, explained as quoted from ft.uns.ac.id, Thursday (22/6/2023) ).
Through this idea, Maya and her team’s paper won the title of Best Paper, outperforming 178 participants from various universities. When it was announced that they had won the best article title, they admitted that they did not expect it.
“To be honest, we didn’t expect to get the Best Paper because many participants took part in this competition. Meanwhile, the presentations and works of other finalists were also very extraordinary and cool. So, when it was announced that we had won Best Paper, we couldn’t believe it and didn’t expect it. Of course, we also feel very grateful because we can make UNS proud in this prestigious and very competitive competition,” she added.
Through this achievement, Maya hopes to get many ideas and innovations to develop other scientific papers. Humas UNS