An international conference on Advanced Materials for Clean Energy & Health Applications (AMCEHA 2019)
\nwas organized jointly by University of Jaffna (UoJ) and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL)
\nfrom 6th to 8th of February 2019. The conference was funded by NFR, DICU, Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sri
\nLanka, Sustainable Energy Authority and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Research in Sri Lanka. Over
\n400 delegates, including 120 foreign delegates from countries such as Norway, India, Canada, Australia, UK,
\nBangladesh, Sudan, Sweden, Finland, Egypt, China, Japan and USA participated at this unique conference. Over
\n180 research articles were submitted and up to 140 research articles have been selected and presented after
\npeer-review process. Altogether 20 researchers from HVL, UiB, UiO and IFE and industry participated at the
\nconference. Selected quality papers will be published as full-scaled articles in \u2018Science Citation Indexed\u2019
\njournals such as MDPI-\u2018Materials\u2019 and \u2018Materials Today\u2019 in the coming weeks after another set of peer-review
\nprocess by the respective publishers.
\nThe participants at AMCEHA 2019 comprised of experts, eminent scientists, industrial representatives from
\nlocal & foreign companies and students of higher learning in Clean energy technologies and Health
\napplications. The conference was organized under the two collaborative projects
\n(http:\/\/project.jfn.ac.lk\/hrncet\/) between UoJ and HVL: Higher Education and Research collaboration on
\nNanomaterials for clean Energy Technologies (HRNCET) and Capacity Building and Establishment of a research
\nConsortium (CBERC) funded by Center for Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU)
\nand Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sri Lanka, respectively. The conference and the workshop were co-chaired
\nby Professor Dhayalan Velauthapillai from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and Professor P.
\nRavirajan of the Department of Physics, University of Jaffna. The first two days of the conference were held at
\nMain premises of the University of Jaffa in Thirunelvely and the third day at the Faculty of Engineering in
\nKilinochchi premises.
\nInauguration ceremony was commenced after procession of invited speakers and guest, lighting of oil lamp
\nand welcome song and dance performed by the students from Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts of the
\nuniversity. His Excellency Thorbj\u00f8rn Gaustads\u00e6ter, Ambassador at The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Colombo
\nwas the chief guest and Prof. P.S.M. Gunaratne, Head, Research and International Cooperation & Vice
\nChairman, University Grants Commission, Sri Lanka was the Guest of Honour Prof.R.Vigneswaran, Vice
\nChancellor, Prof.G.Mikunthan, Dean\/Graduate Studies at University of Jaffna, Rector Berit Rokne and Henning<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Report
\nNorheim, director at HVL welcomed the gathering. Apart from the scientific activities, the conference also
\nprovided opportunities for signing MoUs and agreements for collaboration and co-operation in higher
\neducation and research between University of Jaffna and GEXCON: a world-renowned company in safety
\nmeasures (https:\/\/www.gexcon.com\/news\/Gexcon-signed-MoU-with-University-of-Jaffna\/230\/en) as well as
\nHVL and NIFS, Sri Lanka.
\nOn behalf of the University Council, the vice-chancellor of the University of Jaffna appreciated Professor
\nDhayalan Velauthapillai with a memento for his efforts in winning and executing two major projects worth of
\nover LKR 200 million to promote Higher Education and Research Collaboration at the university of Jaffna and
\nWestern Norway University of Applied Sciences through students – staff mobility programmes, conducting
\ninternational conferences, outreach activities in schools and developing Master degree programmes, since the
\nsigning of the MOU with the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in March 2017
\n(http:\/\/www.jfn.ac.lk\/index.php\/mou-norpart\/).
\nAfter the inauguration ceremony, four plenary talks were delivered by eminent scientists in the fields of
\nnanomaterials for solar cells, health applications and energy storage systems. An interactive poster session
\nwas followed by one-minute spotlight presentation of each poster. Up to thirty posters were displayed by the
\nauthors after the spotlight session.
\nThe second day of the conference (http:\/\/conf.jfn.ac.lk\/amceha\/index.php\/programme\/) was organized under
\nfour different symposiums with themes Solar energy applications; Advanced Materials for Health Applications;
\nAdvanced functional materials; and Wind\/Hydrogen\/Bioenergy and Storage applications. Each symposium had
\nfour plenary and invited lectures and more than 30 contributed papers. On the second day of the conference,
\na considerable number of dentists and the students from the medical faculty attended the session led by world
\nrenowned Skandinavian scientists in regenerative medicine.
\nSri Lankan and Norwegian workshop on Clean Energy Applications was held at the Faculty of Engineering,
\nKilinochchi as the third day of the conference which was co-chaired by Professor Dhayalan Velauthapillai from
\nWestern Norway University of Applied Sciences and Professor A.Atputharajah, Dean\/Engineering. It was
\nattended by most of the participants of the conference, other industrialists, policy makers from the
\ngovernment sector, investors and representatives from clean energy enterprises in Sri Lanka. In order to realize
\nnew innovations, researchers need the active support of the industry. Especially in the clean energy sector,
\nthe industrial involvement will help us in implementing new innovative clean energy technological solutions.
\nThus, on Friday, in collaboration with Sustainable Energy Authority in Sri Lanka, multiple sessions were
\narranged to discuss on the challenges and possibilities in implementing clean energy solutions in Sri Lanka. The
\nfirst part was to look back at the Clean Energy Seminar held in Colombo in May 2018 and identify the progress
\nmade in different aspects of clean energy technologies and to discuss the way forward in the future. Local and
\nNorwegian clean energy companies presented their activities. An interactive session was also arranged to
\ndiscuss the possibilities in enhancing collaboration in higher education in the field of clean energy technologies
\nbetween Sri Lankan, Norwegian and Indian Universities. Expatriates from various countries presented their
\nideas on how the expatriate community contribute in capacity building at University of Jaffna.
\nThis international conference is considered as an historical event of the university of Jaffna with more than
\n120 foreign participants, and students, academics, officials and all the national and international delegates
\nhad praised the conference as one of the best conferences they have attended. The conference is
\ncharacterized as of high quality and well organized. AMCEHA 2019 has contributed in widening the research
\nnetworks working on nano materials for clean energy and health applications; the academic personal have
\nbroadened their research network and the students have got international exposure and are really inspired by
\nhigh quality research presentations. In addition, the participants at the conference had also an opportunity to
\nenjoy the hospitality of the people in the region.
\nOraginising committee of AMCEHA \u2013 2019, acknowledge Norwegian Research Council, Royal Norwegian Embassy in
\nColombo, Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU), , Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority and
\nMininstry of Science, Technology and Research for their generous financial support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An international conference on Advanced Materials for Clean Energy & Health Applications (AMCEHA 2019) was organized jointly by University of Jaffna (UoJ) and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) from 6th to 8th of February 2019. The conference was funded by NFR, DICU, Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sri Lanka, Sustainable Energy Authority and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3772,"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761\/revisions\/3772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anceha.no\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}