Dr Suzana Yusup visits the University to talk about her biomass-related research
Clean Carbon member Professor Andy Cruden, welcomed Associate Professor Dr Suzana Yusup to the University on Wednesday. Dr Yusup is from the Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS in Malaysia and visited Southampton to give a talk entitled: 'Novel techniques for reducing the acid value of pre or post blended feedstock of rubber seed oil and crude palm oil'.
The talk outlined a novel integrated blending system encompassing a pre-treatment cavitation reactor that reduces the high fatty acid content from crude palm oil and rubber seed oil before feeding it into a main base catalytic reactor. The reactors were designed to accept a single premixed blend, a post blend and a mixture of methanol and catalyst feed from the top vessel. The highest mass transfer was achieved between the reactants by creating the cavities under high pressure through 4 new designed orifice plates under 1-3 bar of pressure. The methyl esters were derived from the hydrodynamic technology using various feedstock oils such as blended palm oil and rubber seed oil or waste cooking oil. Its applications can further be extended to be utilized as base oil for nano-fluids and lubrication fluids for various industries. The glycerol produced as the by-product can further be refurbished as di- glycerol which has a huge industrial application. Production of methyl esters can offer immediate substitution to reduce our dependence on petroleum diesel. As a result of the development in this industry and market, opportunities would be raised for farmers to grow new oilseed crops and convert agricultural wastes to increase production of non-conventional oils leading to generation of profit and income
Dr Yusup has held the post of Research Director of Mission Oriented Research in the area of Green Technology; and Departmental Head of the Chemical Engineering Department at the Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. In 1992 she graduated from the University of Leeds with a Chemistry degree, before going on to gain her MSc in Chemical Engineering (Adsorption) from the University of Wales, Swansea in 1995. In 1998 she was awarded her PhD in Chemical Engineering (Powder Technology) from the University of Bradford. She has published many articles both in journals and at conferences at both national and international levels and has lead several research grants, nationally and internationally. Her research interest is in the area of biomass conversion to fuel and biochemicals, material development and green processes.