PhD Interview
Transcript: Sanduni Pathiraja • A highly motivated Chemical Engineer with one year of experience and developed competency to professional body standards in the structure, designing, manufacturing and performance efficiencies of the chemical engineering field. • Attentive to detail with the organisation and prioritisation required to completing assigned tasks on time and to the highest standards of quality and accuracy. • A confident communicator and works effectively on own initiative or as part of a team and displays strong leadership qualities demonstrated whilst working in challenging environments. EDUCATION EDUCATION Why CHEMICAL ENGINEERING? Given its diverse and ever-changing nature, and the opportunity to contribute to quality of life around the world, the field of engineering offers a very unique appeal. Growing up in a city with many multinational companies such as Nestle and Unilever, I remained extremely intrigued by the wide variety of products manufactured and the processes of making those products, which laid the foundation to aspire a career in chemical and process engineering. I was further motivated by the application of scientific principles on tangible problems, the role of chemical engineers in society and the wide range of career opportunities available to them in numerous fields such as Oil, Pharmaceutical and FMCG industries. BACHELORS Bachelor thesis - Designing a ‘Dry Laundry Powder Plant’ in the UK in collaboration with Procter & Gamble in Newcastle. Thesis focus Widening the economic and engineering principles involved in the design of chemical plants and equipment. Product specification development to meet the customer needs by translating these needs into physical properties of the product. Skills gained Knowledge about the processing of chemicals and other materials, the optimum design methods, cost estimation, profitability, potential market and safety that need to be evaluated during a process and plant design. Problem solving, decision making, logical and quantitative thinking skills,excellent written and verbal communication skills to meet professional standards. The University of Sheffield, UK BEng (Hons.) Chemical Engineering (2012 - 2015) Achieved: First Class with Honours MASTER'S Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland Master's thesis Optimisation of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) process and chemical investigation of interfaces for the stability of all-inorganic perovskite quantum dots with alumina. Laboratory of Nanochemistry for Energy at EPFL, Switzerland. Study Plan Core studies: Courses on modelling of unit operations, process control, and advanced process design. Specialization studies: Courses on bioenergy technology solutions, process intensification & product design. Minor studies: Separation technology Water treatment & green chemistry Design project - Extraction of metals from e-waste using an ultrasound assisted reactor. Software skills - Aspen Plus, AutoCAD, Comsol and Matlab for process modelling and designing. MSC. (Tech) Chemical and Process Engineering (2016 - present) Expected: GPA of 4 EXPERIENCE Research Assistant Process Engineer EXPERIENCE 2017 May -Aug 2017 May-August Research Assistant Laboratory of Green Chemistry (LUT), Mikkeli Finland Project title: Development and optimization of Nano-catalysts for biodiesel production Importance of the project Biodiesel is a promising alternating environmentally benign fuel to mineral diesel made from renewable sources and waste lipids. Nano-catalysts with high specific surface area and high catalytic activity can be used to overcome the problems associated with conventional heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts. Materials used Rapeseed oil, lard oil and used vegetable oil Nano-catalysts: TiO2, CaO, ZnO, MgO doped with LiOH and Ce-Fe doped with KOH, Ni-Al-Cu Nitrates with NaBH4 Analysis techniques used Main analysis method: GC-MS Other analysis methods: FTIR, BET, XRD, Density, Viscosity, SEM, NMR Results Rapeseed oil showed the best results with CaO when it was doped with 75% of LiOH Lard oil worked the best with Ce-Fe doped with 0.5 KOH The oils used to show the best results when some basic properties are introduced to the nano-catalysts. 2016 Jan-Aug 2016 Jan-Aug Process Engineer Nestle Involved in production, reviewing processes, planning and performing trials to ensure processes operate as designed and to implement improvements to existing processes with due regard for safety, environmental and quality factors. Projects Optimizing the UHT mixing operation of a tetra pack beverage process to examine the technical suitability, operability and cost-efficiency. DMAIC project for resolving the issue of using high-concentrated chemicals during CIP-cleaning process by operators, due to the absence of a well-designed automated system. Learning Advanced my knowledge about the wider engineering issues surrounding production and optimum business efficiency. To use engineering principles and theories combined with a
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