Advanced Nanomaterials for Clean Energy and Health Applications
PhD Research Fellow Haja Sherief attended the ‘Lean innovation in Life Sciences’ workshop held on the 17th to 18th October 2018 at Oslo Science park, Oslo (Norway) organised by Centre for Digital Life Norway collaboration with The Life Science Cluster, Catapult Life Science and Share Lab, Science for Society and Digital Life Norway Research School.
Professor Ravirajan Punniamoorthy and Professor G. Rajanya Asoka Kumara were invited by Professor Dhayalan Velauthapillai to HVL. Both Scholars arrived at Bergen on the 16th October 2018. Both of them took part in a seminar conducted for Undergraduate students and the students were given demonstrations on solar cells. The scholars also the met the Rector of the HVL and also participated in a half a day research seminar conducted for the ANCEHA group including research fellows, exchange students, and scholars from CIT.
Bi-Monthly ANCEHA meeting took place on the 12th October. Gz. MeeNilankco Theiventhran presented a revised version of his paper, which he presented at the Regional Innovation Conference 2018. The tile of his presentation was ‘Dynamics of energy transition and innovation: The question of equity’. The presentation is attached herewith.
Powerpoint Presentation Slides
Prof. Dhayalan Velauthapillai, Coordinator of the ANCEHA instructed all the members to submit an abstract for the upcoming International Conference in Jaffna. He also informed that a delegation from Sri Lanka will visit Norway next week and instructed everyone to prepare a presentation for 10 minutes on his or her progress on the 19th October.
The presentation on 27th of September was done by Asitha Udayanga Malikaramge on the topic of “Preperation and characterization of Photon upconversion catalyst for photo water splitting hydrogen production” .In this presentation the current progress , the problems occurred and the future works were discussed .
Powerpoint Presentation Slides
Later MeeNilankco Theiventhran shared his experiences and thoughts from his visit to the University of South Eastern Norway. Prof. Dhayalan introduced the flayer for the conference and requested everyone to share the information widely.
MeeNilankco Theiventhran (Ph.D. Research Fellow) delivered a talk at the Research seminar on human rights in Sri Lanka organised by the University of South Eastern Norway on the 25th of
September at the Drammen Campus. The title of the talk was ‘Rights-based questions: Technology transfer in transitional societies’. The talk based three fundamental questions. First, why we should ask rights based questions in technology transfer. Second Why transitional societies need special attention when it comes to technology transfer and the final question was can the gap between rights and needs bridged since transitional societies have a lot of needs and fulfilling the needs creates rights based questions.
Powerpoint Presentation Slides
PhD candidates and the Project leader had their first meeting after the summer vacation. It was decided to host the meeting every two weeks and discuss the progress individually and collectively.
The upcoming International conference in Jaffna, Sri Lanka were discussed and the roles and responsibilities were shared. The website for the project group is in progress and everyone was
asked to contribute to building the website and Thamilselvan was given the overall responsibility to oversee the website.
Three Sri Lankan students have been undergoing research training at HVL. Siva Uthayaraj from the Department of Physics, University of Jaffna arrived on the 24th July, Asitha Udayanga Malikaramge from the Post Graduate Institute of Science, University of Peradeniya arrived on 14th August, Rajaramanan Tharmakularasa, Department of Chemistry, University of Jaffna arrived on 5th of October 2018. They are conducting research at HVL under Professor Dhayalan Velauthapillai.
Suthan Vivekananthan has over 16 years of experience in process system design and analysis in the fields of Offshore and/or Onshore engineering projects relating to oil & gas production as well as good exposure to renewable energy sector. Extensive experience as Interface Engineer, coordinating multidiscipline teams to ensure smooth delivery. Long experience working with Greenfield projects for the Norwegian Continental she lf. Possesses good knowledge about relevant regulatory requirements and design specifications such as NORSOK, DNV-GL and API. Worked at following International companies: Jacobs Engineering, London, UK, Aker Solutions, Oslo, Norway, Genesis Oil and Gas Consultants, Oslo, Norway, Citec Norway (Present employer). Both Physics and Chemical societies had requested him to make presentation/lectures on An Introduction to Offshore Oil and Gas Industry.
Professor Alfred Christy, Professor of Chemistry, Agdar University, Norway, visited Jaffna on March 19, 2018 after delivering talk and having discussion with Professors Rajapakshe and Kumara and their group at the department of Chemistry, university of Peradeniya on 14.03.2018.
On 19.03.2018, he had discussions with academics and research students at the Research laboratory, Department of Physics, and the Department of Chemistry. The meetings were mainly aimed for the future collaboration on ‘Water Splitting for clean energy applications and he encouraged the academic staff to write a concept paper for initiating collaborative research on Water Splitting for Clean Energy Applications at the university of Jaffna.
Both Physics and Chemical societies had requested him to make presentation/lectures on Operating principles of Spectroscopic analysis. On the next day, he spent much time at the Research laboratory, department of Physics met with the research students, and discussed about their ongoing project work as well as preparing for the presentation on March 22, 2018. On March 21, 2018 he spent his time at the Faculty of Engineering, Ariviyal Nagar, Kilinochi and delivered a talk on “Quantitative determination of calcium hydroxide in concrete by Near infrared spectroscopy” organized under HRNCET project in collaboration with the Institution of Engineering Sri Lanka Northern Province Center and Kilinochchi Chapter . The talk was well received and it was beyond the expectation as more than 80 participants (staff, engineers and students) attended.
On March 22, 2018, Prof. A. Christy delivered a talk on “Operational Principles of Spectroscopic Techniques”which was jointly organised by Chemical and Physics Societies of Faculty of Science, University of Jaffna. Despite the Non-academic strike at the university, about 40 people, including academic staff, final year students, research assistants attended the talk. In his talk, he covered the operating principles of UV/Vis and Infrared spectrometry. Further, he cherished his experiences as an academic staff at the University of Jaffna.
On the request made by Professor Christy, Dr. (Miss.) Shivatharsiny Rasalingam made a presentation on “Basics of Water Splitting” as he wanted to know the experiences and the ongoing work at the University of Jaffna in order to lead the future collaboration in the field of Water Splitting for clean energy applications. Dr. (Ms.) R. Shivatharsiny briefed her experiences, in particular, in the field of heterogeneous water splitting. On behalf of both Physics ad Chemical societies, Dr.P.Abiman, Head/Chemistry acknowledged the speakers. A concept note with budget detail was sent to Professor Christy with a copy to Professor Dhayalan.
Overall, Prof. A. Christy’s visit to University of Jaffna was very productive, and we hope he is leaving Jaffna, after fulfilling the hopes what he brought with!
Profile of Prof.Christy
Prof. Alfred A. Christy obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Peradeniya, and his masters and PhD from the University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. The first position held by Professor Christy was as a Demonstrator/Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka (1976-1977). After a six years contract appointment in Nigeria as senior Science master, he moved to Norway and started his postgraduate education while working as an assistant teacher in Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, University of Bergen (1983-1990). After completing his postgraduate education, he joined the Department of Chemistry as a research Scientist (1991-1992) and later as a laboratory manager/research scientist in the FT-IR laboratory he built up at the department (1992-1998). He assumed a professorship in Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, University of Agder in 1998.
Professor Christy has accumulated an impressive list of scientific achievements during his career. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and presented more than 110 lectures at conferences, institutions of higher learning and industrial establishments around the world. Professor Christy has authored several book chapters and reports. He coauthored a book entitled “Modern Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy” (A. A. Christy, Elsevier-2001). He has also been a co-editor of a second book “NIR spectroscopy in Food Science and Technology” (Wiley, 2006). Professor Christy has acted also as a referee for some 25 different International Journals across a wide spread of disciplines related to chemistry.
Professor Christy has been included in several biographical directories from 1991 onwards. He has also received several awards such as “Man of the Year 1994”, “20th Century Achievement Award (1995)” and several other honours such as “Five hundred leaders of influence in the world”.
Professor Alfred Christy, Professor of Chemistry, Agdar University, Norway, visited Sri Lanka on 14th March, 2018, landing at the Katunayake International Airport, Colombo, Sri Lanka at 23.45 hour. Despite his very late arrival on the 14th, he started to leave Colombo in the early morning to reach Peradeniya at around 10.30 am. He was well received by the Dean of the Faculty of Science, Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Science, Heads of Departments of Chemistry and Physics, his research collaborators Professors R.M.G. Rajapakse and G.R.A. Kumara, academic staff members of Chemistry and Physics Departments, Invited Academic Staff Representative from Newly-established UVA-Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, Postgraduate Students and Undergraduate students of the two departments. Despite the unsettled status of Kandy that was prevailed recently and that academic programmes of all Sri Lankan Universities are hampered by the Trade Union Action of the University Non-academic Staff, there were over 100 people attended the programme since academic staff members of the both departments, postgraduate and special degree undergraduate students found that the topic of his presentation is not only interesting but also highly valuable to their R&D programmes. After a brief meeting over tea at the Office of the Head, Department of Chemistry, Professor Christy gave a very valuable lecture on Application of Near Infrared Spectroscopy in Investigating Adsorbed Water in Silica, Carbohydrates and Titania, at the Chemistry Auditorium where the whole auditorium was full of participants. Professor R.M.G. Rajapakse invited him to give his presentation after reading his credentials and making the audience aware of the high calibre achievements of Professor Christy and rewards and honours awarded to him nationally and internationally. Professor Christy talked about Applications of Near Infrared Spectroscopy in identifying adsorbed, hydrogen-bonded and loose water molecules on silica nanoparticles, carbohydrates and titania nanoparticles. He presented his lecture in very clearly in easy-to-understand manner explaining all the important points very clearly for even a non-chemist to understand the concepts and arriving at conclusions through results he has obtained. He has also stressed the importance of derivative spectra such as first-derivative, second-derivative, third-derivative and fourth-derivative spectra in obtaining clear bands and resolving merged bands into their individual components. The entire audience found that the lecture was highly impressive and useful. The lecture was followed by a question time where Professor Christy was bombarded with questions. One of the most important problems in making glass superhydrophobic is to increase surface hydroxyl groups and professor Christy gave a very valuable idea to do so. Physicists who are working on ionically-conducting polymers and their applications in gel-polymer electrolyte based dye-sensitized solar cells had the problem of characterizing alumina they use in these systems. Professor Christy promised to work on alumina nanoparticles also. Professor Christy also revealed the possibility of accommodating two researchers in his research group for a short term such as three months to carry out joint research studies through the NOPRAT Programme. We are planning to send two Research Assistants to work with him in the near future.
Second Session was on Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Generation. Two Research Students of Professor R.M.G. Rajapakse and Professor G.R.A. Kumara presented their results on Phton Upconversion Based Hydrogen Generation where Mr. R.B.D.S. Rajapakshe discussed Nb(V)-doped, Ag quantum dot attached TiO2 nanowires he synthesized in harvesting UV and Visible portions and getting near IR upconverted to visible light for faster generation of hydrogen from water. His presentation was accompanied with a video of his experiments showing fast generation of hydrogen from water in the dark. Mr. Asitha Udayana Malikaramage spent six months already at the Research Group of Professor V. Dhayalan of Western Norway University who discussed his results obtained there where he has prepared Ir-doped TiO2 nanoparticles and extensively characterized. Using methanol as the sacrificial hole scavenger he has shown a durable hydrogen degeneration system overcoming processes responsible for the slowing down of hydrogen generation reaction. He showed continuous hydrogen generation over 48 h and reusability of the catalyst over and over again. Professor Christy and the audience were highly impressed with results obtained so far and stressed the importance of continuing this research through our collaborations. Professor Christy also revealed his interest in helping the newly established Uva-Wrllassa University to improve their Technology Degree Programmes. He is of the hope that the delegates who will be visiting the International Conference on Clean Energy in May-June would be able to visit this University to give some Invited Lectures and to get them included in the programme to help develop their University also.
Professor Christy left the Department at around 3.30 pm after the generous lunch offer of Professor G.R.A. Kumara. Professor Christy’s visit was a very successful academic and social visit where he met his colleagues and teachers who were with him during his undergraduate career at this Department recalling nice memories of their time.
Reported by Professor Gamini Rajapakshe, Senior Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Peradeniya