Category: Events

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.

Flyer http://project.jfn.ac.lk/hrncet/wp-content/uploads/Expert_talk_under_HRNCET-Suthan-Offshore-Oil-and-Gas-Industry-Final-July-2018-1-2.pdf

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 14^th March, 2018, landing at the Katunayake International Airport, Colombo, Sri Lanka at 23.45 hour. Despite his very late arrival on the 14^th, 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

The programme was organized in collaboration with the Provincial Department of Education, Northern Province. From 6-14 March 2018, an educational training on CETs for 2684 school students from 56 schools in the Jaffna District was conducted. A total of 10 sessions, each of 2.5 hours duration, were organized at 6 different schools. Two sessions were conducted at Vembadi Girls’ High School (Jaffna), Victoria College (Chullipuram), Mahajana College (Tellippalai) and Methodist Girls’ high School (Point Pedro), whereas one session was carried out at Chavakachcheri Hindu College and Velanai Central College.

Target group: Grades 8-11 and G.C.E (A/L) (2019 & 2020 batches of Science and Technology streams)

Main features of the programme:

• Power point (PPT) presentations about Clean Energy Technologies (wind energy, hydro energy, bio energy and solar energy)
• Video presentations on Clean Energy Technologies
• Guided the students to do demonstration of working models such as solar fan cap, solar car, solar phone charger, solar garden night lamp (with senor), Solar fan, solar table lamp, Solar controller
• Hands on experience in building smaller size solar panels using solar cells (Short video coverage of the event)
• Written quiz examination on CETs. Find the list of students selected for further training at the university of Jaffna
• Summary of students’ evaluation of the programme

65 students, who scored above 80 % in the written quiz examination on CETs, were selected for a one-day workshop and final round of quiz competition on CETs to be held in April 2018.

Resource persons:

• Professors: P. Ravirajan, A. Atputharajah and Meena Senthilnanthanan
• Senior Lecturers: Dr. B. Ketheesan, Dr. A. Thevakaran, Dr. A. Anbruvel and Dr. R. Shivatharsiny
• Lecturer: Ms.S.Vinothini
• Postgraduate students and Technical officers of University of Jaffna
• Science graduates trained at the Training of Trainer (TOT) prorammes conducted in November 2017

Detailed report of the ten sessions conducted in Jaffna District

Dr. N. Rajamanickam, Gandhigram Rural University, India had been worked as a visiting researcher  at Department of Physics, University of Jaffna from 05 February 2018 to 04 March 2018 under Higher Education and Research collaboration on Nanomaterials for Clean Energy Technologies project (HRNCET). He worked on materials development towards Nanostructured titanium dioxide based dye sensitized solar cells as well as methylammonium lead iodide based perovskite solar cells. Based on the research conducted here, he achieved new ideas about the doping effect in different materials. During his stay, he trained a few final year physics hours student and a MPhil student for fabricating solar cells and is planning to co-author a paper. He has a plan to continue the collaboration and make future visit to the department. On the request made by the Physics Society of our university, he made an excellent presentation titled Effect of doping on Binary Oxide Nanomaterials. Faculty staff, final year Physics and Chemistry student attended his presentation.

Brief profile of speaker
Dr. N. Rajamanickam obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the Alagappa University, India and his masters and PhD from the Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, India. Now, he is working as SERB – National Postdoctoral Fellow at Gandhigram Rural University, Dindigul, India sponsored by Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology India. In 2014, he has selected as a Bhaskara Advanced Solar energy fellowship from IUSSTF, USA and visited center for renewable energy research center, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA for 6 month. He has published over 18 papers in scientific reputed international journals, 9 AIP proceedings and 1 book chapter. He has also presented more than 36 oral and posters at international and national conferences.

Venkat Raman, India had been worked as a visiting researcher at Department of Physics, University of Jaffna from January 26, 2018  to February 05, 2018 to under Higher Education and Research collaboration on Nanomaterials for Clean Energy Technologies project (HRNCET). During his stay, he trained a few undergraduate students on fabrication and characterization of Dye Sensitized Solar cells. He made a presentation on “Enhanced performance of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells using Metal Oxide based nanomaterials”.

From 6^th of December to 8^th of December, an international symposium was arranged in India under the UTFORSK, INCP and NORPART projects. Both students and staff from HVL, UiB, UoA, UoJ, UoP were involved in this symposium and meetings along with our partners from CIT. Eight academics from Universities of Jaffna, Peradeniya and Eastern were actively participated by presenting papers at the symposium under this project.

Professors and research students from HVL, University of Jaffna,University of Peradeniya and Coimbatore Institute of Technology visited Christian Michaelsen Research and Prototech on the 17th of October. President of Prototech, Dr. Bernt Skeie presented the research work carried out in the field of fuel cells. The delegation had also presentations on the activities carried out under the NORPART project. Delegates held discussions on possible research collaborations. The day was concluded with a visit to the laboratories driven by Prototech.