Another proud achievement was made by students of the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia (FTUI). This time, two students of the International Class Double Degree Program in Chemical Engineering class 2018 won the People’s Choice Award at Monash’s FYP Poster Presentation. The two students are Beatrix Theodor Valentia and Deandra Nuzulika Ramadhanti who are currently continuing their education at Monash University. Monash’s FYP Poster Presentation will be held on 2-6 June 2022.
“This poster presentation activity is part of a series of Final Year Project (FYP) courses that act like a final project, where our project is entitled: “Recovery of Critical Metals from Spent Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries by Hydrometallurgical Means Using Organic Acids as Leaching Agents” under supervision of Professor Sankar Bhattacharya. Our project aims to find the best recycling process for used NiMH batteries that accumulate in landfills, considering that NiMH batteries are one of the biggest legacy wastes,” said Beatrix.
“In addition to collecting written reports for the project, we also have to make posters that will be presented at the FYP Poster Session. The presentation session was held on June 2, 2022, where in that session, there was a vote on the selection of the favorite poster and we got the most votes from around 70 projects that were displayed. They are all students who took the final assignment like us,” said Deandra.
Beatrix and Deandrea’s research focuses on the manufacturing process for nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, which are currently reaching an all-time high to meet the growing demand for the electronic vehicle market. This then becomes an environmental problem, because NiMH is made from many critical metals and earth elements obtained by mining. Many mines are actively seeking this material, leading to a shortage of supplies.
Waste battery recovery is currently growing as an alternative solution to this problem. Hydrometallurgical leaching is also one of the key elements of the metal recovery process. This research is aimed at developing the process through the development of an effective and environmentally friendly hydrometallurgical leach through experimental work, and evaluating the effect of process variables on the leaching efficiency.
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Public Communication Bureau
Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia