Chemical Projects

All of a sudden, in the midst of the hectic study week where students do their last-minute studies like hell, my classmates are celebrating "Merdeka!"

After days of serious sleep deprivation, of 1 meal per day, of no games and movies, of hours of meeting, now we are all free of those tortures. (At least for now. It shall resume in around two weeks time.)

University life is all about last-minute struggles. Whatever it is, be it assignments, quizzes, tests, final exams, and the most significant here, project reports and presentations. My class, chemical engineering final year, is supposed to design a plant, and this project is worth 3 credit hours, with the marks based fully on presentation and reports only. I've been through this last-minute struggles countless times before, but I don't think I've ever seen anything of this degree. I slept at two or three o'clock in the morning (which is totally normal) and then got up after subuh to stay up awake well after five in the afternoon (which is absolutely abnormal for me). To me, this is torturous enough, but other groups went into even further unimaginable workrate.

But now everything is over. Lega is one feeling, the relieving feeling, he feeling of escape from those torturous days of work. But I have another feeling which is, I don't know how to exactly describe it. Dissatisfaction, maybe. Feeling of unaccomplishment. Feeling that things could've gone better, I could've put on more effort, but things have happened, and that's it.

As a chemical engineering student here, you have to do two projects, both consuming two semesters of your life - Final Year Project and Plant Design Project. The former, FYP, is an individual project while the latter, PDP, is a group project. Most people hate these projects, which is totally understandable, considering the suffer and agony that one had to go through especially towards the deadlines. The emotional breakdown is immense (though I wouldn't say unbearable, because I'm yet to see anyone committing suicide due to these projects).

(OK although I'm aware that most of my blog readers are from UTP, but I always hope outsiders will somehow get themselves here, and if there are outsiders, then I'm more than pleased to explain how our projects are here.)

But to be very honest, I love my projects. Specifically my projects. For the individual FYP, each student are assigned to a supervisor, and although everyone can propose their own topic, most students just settle with the project that their supervisors suggested to them. It is the same scenario for me, but for me, I actually liked my project. For the plant design thingy, every group is given a common problem, but the ways to solve it is up to your group. And I love my plant design, too.

If I'm given the chance to explain to any lay person who is interested enough to understand my projects, then I will gladly explain it. My individual project is about isomerizing straight-chained alkanes to branched isomers. Oh, sorry, it is already too technical, is it? Maybe I'll draw or something like that.

Our fuel for vehicles are petroleum based. Fuels mean substance to burn (yea, everyone knows that). Petroleum based fuel is mainly hydrocarbon, which is molecules made up by chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms. The gasoline (here in Malaysia it is commonly called petrol) that we fill our car or motorcycle tanks are mainly chains consisting of 5 to 12 carbons. My project focuses on one particular type of hydrocarbon - the one that consists of 6 carbons which is called hexane.

Hexane has six carbon atoms and twelve hydrogen atoms. Carbon can connect to four atoms while hydrogen can only connect to one. There are five ways of arranging these carbons. These different arrangements are called isomers. My project is to change the straight-chained hexane into the branched-chained hexanes. This process is called isomerization.

But why? Why isomerize? This is what makes me interested in my project, because it actually has practical application for mankind. Straight-chained hexane (designated as n-hexane, for normal-hexane) is the least efficient fuel for engines compared to the branched hexanes. The branched hexanes combust with air more efficiently, giving 'more power' in the fuel. For years, efforts have been made to make fuels with 'more power'. The simple way is additives, where they add things into the fuel to give it more power. They used lead (plumbum) but then found out lead can have serious health effects to inhalers of the exhaust. Then (even now) they add aromatics (aromatics are a term for the group of hydrocarbons that have a benzene ring, but no, you don't need to know, all you do need to know is) which is carcinogenic, which means it can cause cancer. Now they add MTBE, stands for methyl-tert-butyl-ether, and I don't know how bad it is, but I heard that it's bad.

So my project is to boost fuel power by practically adding nothing. I just rearranged the molecule structure so that it gives more power. Very interesting for me.

Thing is, this thing is an individual project. When it is individual, you have no drive to do it. I become very lazy and ignorant of this project. I meet very seldomly with my supervisor, I start worrying about it around a week before deadline, and start doing the report on the eve of the deadline. We have to report our progress to our supervisors by submitting intermediate reports as you proceed. So far there are three reports to be submitted, I've submitted two (I've submitted the second report, but my supervisor made some changes and asked me to redo it, which I never did), but all of them are lousy. I've downloaded some interesting journals about this project, about findings people have made that are related to this project, but I hardly read any of them. All the reports are disappointing, and what makes it even more disappointing is that I actually have not done anything yet on hands. I am yet do conduct any experiment, because of my laziness, of my laidback-ness.

The second project, the group project, the plant design project, is the one I mentioned earlier, the one that my classmates have just been Merdeka!-ed. It is a group project, which gives more drive for you to do the work. The fact that if you're lazy, you're jeopardizing other people's grades makes you work harder for the sake of 'unselfishness'. The problem statement given to everyone is to make a plant that produces motor-grade fuel from biomass waste. In simpler terms, we have to use worthless materials (palm waste, rice husks, sugarcane bagasse, waste cooking oil, even manure, yup, manure) and change it into fuel that you can use to run your car. Again, very interesting. At least for me. We are talking about converting totally worthless junks into a necessity of transportation sector. (Click the picture for the full animation.)

Thing is, the mass business of chemical production is petroleum based. Even PETRONAS, the big company that sponsors our university, generates most of their money (and the country's money) from petroleum and the value added products (meaning to say, petroleum that is converted into more expensive commodities). Previous students of chemical engineering here have always been assigned to designing petrochemical plants. All of a sudden, our batch is assigned to a biochemical plant design project, which astonished everyone. Even the world is currently still developing this technology (the waste-to-fuel thing) and now they're expecting yet-to-graduate students to come out with the ingenious design.

Even the simulation softwares available to us, HYSYS and iCON, are not designed to simulate biochemical processes. Most groups have difficulty creating hypothetical components for their solids, and the reactions are mostly ambiguous, unlike petrochemical processes. Man, am I being too technical again? I'm saying that it is very hard to convert wood into gasoline, while it is much easier (and more available sources to be referred, because the plants have already been established all around the world) to convert, for example, ethane to ethylene.

Still, I enjoy doing the project, but with much less conviction than my enthusiasm. I am really thrilled with the prospect of converting valueless materials into fuel you can feed your car. My group opted to use empty fruit bunches (EFB) from palm waste and convert it to butanol, which is a fuel that can actually replace gasoline drop by drop. Very interesting, indeed. I've read through lots of journals, and even reports from some very enthusiastic people (probably just as enthusiastic as me about this waste-to-fuel project) and designed an detailed outline on the construction of the butanol-producing plant itself. If I had the money then I would totally fund the plant construction.

Thing is, I was too relaxed. I love the project, but I was too lazy to commit myself for it. How am I suppose to fund the project if the project is not even properly planned? When you put on serious effort then only you'd find the flaws, the missing ingredients that you need to find. My references looked wonderful, but it is never perfect, never complete. I always require more information when the more information I find. But when you realized "Hey, this is not how it is supposed to be done," with one day left towards the presentation, it is a bit too late. If only you could identify that much earlier, you would have more time correcting your mistakes. But as I mentioned, this is the ultimate university life. A friend of mine quoted from some boss he heard from, "I'm not looking for the technical skills from a fresh graduate. Instead, it is their capabilities of working last-minute is the value that we seek." Haha, I don't know if that is sarcasm or what, but if he really means it, probably he has a point. Working under stress is a skill, and although it is never good to do things last-minute, one has to admit it is never avoidable in real life.

The presentation is over. My group is done. We do have to submit the report, though, next month. Till then, the suffering shall cease for a while. I could've made this plant better, but for now, for the sake of the grades, I think this is acceptable. Not great, not good, just acceptable. I do want to put in more effort, and if possible, I always hope my group's report will be a reference for a future giant company interested in investing funds for a plant that generates fuel (= money) from worthless shit, but for now, we're doing it for the sake of graduating, and I guess I will always be like that.

When it is done, you exhale a sigh of relief, you celebrate with your groupmates for once and and then you never see them again.