Pilot Plant Development and Training Institute - Waste Utilization and Management

This group has particularly strong expertise in waste water treatment with emphasis on high rate anaerobic digestion systems, which forms the main research area of the group to develop technologies and gain a deeper insight into the fundamental aspects of waste treatment systems. The group is active in conducting research programs to improve waste treatment technologies, including fundamental research on the kinetics of anaerobic digestion, overall treatment efficiency improvement, and increasing energy recovery efficiency in industrial waste water treatment. The group provides consulting services on the design and implementation of full-scale anaerobic systems for agro/food-industries, as well as organizing workshops and seminars to disseminate information and facilitate technology transfer to industry.

Development of kinetic model of anaerobic degradation
Development of a hybrid reactor combining an upflow sludge bed and a fixed bed in treating and producing biogas
Population Dynamics Study of Bacterial Communities in an Anaerobic Hybrid Reactor Using 16S rRNA Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization
Benchmarking of water utilization in tapioca starch industry

Apart from the focus research groups, BEC also carry out the research in areas of Food Technology and Engineering which emphasize on food properties production improving, food thermal processing and aseptic processing. Some ongoing research projects in this group are:

Solid-liquid flow in a continuous bioprocessing system
Development of thermal processing
Low-pressure superheated steam drying of food products
Collaboration project in improving industrial scale steamed bun process
Study of water loss and respiration during storage of coating oranges with chitosan having various degree deacetylation
Extension of the holding time of deep fat fried food using hydrocolloid