TAHNIAH GERAN TAJAAN NIPPON SHEET GLASS FOUNDATION FOR MATERIALS SCIENCE & ENGINEERING II

PROFESSOR. DR. LIM JIT KANG

Microplastic (MPs )are now a global scale environmental and public health threat with pervasive presence in freshwater and marine environments. Recent research findings comparing 109 countries on five continents from 1990 to 2018 has found that Malaysian consumed the highest amount of MPs per capital. Here we proposed the use of iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) functionalized silica microbead for MP degradation. We hypothesized that by having IONPs-microbead with dual magnetic and catalytic bifunctionalities, we not only can degrade the MPs but also actively removing them from aqueous environment via magnetic separation. In addition to IONPs-microbead synthesis and MP degradation test, we would also be conducting transport phenomena study on both MPs and IONPs-microbead in sand column (soil-aqueous environment). We anticipated that with the help of computational fluid dynamics simulation, we could understand the underlying mechanism leading to the development of a feasible engineering solution for in-situ use of this nanomaterial for water remediation.

TS. DR. MOHD NAZRI BIN ABD RAHMAN

High efficiency ultraviolet-C light-emitting diodes (UVC LEDs) are now urgently needed to enhance current medical treatments and disinfections technologies, contributing to improved public health. A critical factor in increasing the LEDs efficiency is obtaining high material quality aluminum nitride (AlN) which serves as the base layer for the UVC LEDs. This research aims to improve the material quality AlN through pulsed atomic layer epitaxy (PALE) technique. In comparison to other techniques, PALE offers precise control over layer thickness and composition, resulting in low dislocation density AlN layers. Nonetheless, this technique is substantially effective for low temperature growth, which is preferable for suppressing unwanted parasitic reactions. The optimization of Al flow duration and V/III ratio during PALE process can be a promising way to improve the material quality AlN layers.Therefore, the objective of this project is to determine the optimal Al flow duration and V/III ratios during PALE process that can promote lateral overgrowth where it can effectively annihilate dislocations and minimize vacancy cluster defects. These findings ultimately lead to a significant improvement in the efficiency of UVC LEDs. Here, AlN layers will be epitaxially grown with the variation of Al pulse duration and V/III ratios, followed by characterizations of the samples to check their crystallinity, surface morphology and transparency properties. The results propose a new alternative way in obtaining high material quality AlN grown at low temperatures, contributing towards widespread adoption of UVC LEDs for enhanced public health.