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Using plastic waste, Indonesian students win smart car competition in London
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Smart students: Gadjah Mada University student Herman Amrullah (right) speaks about his team's win at a smart car competition in London while team members Sholahuddin Alayyubi (center) and Thya Laurencia Benedita look on in a press conference at their university campus on Monday. (The Jakarta Post/Sri Wahyuni)
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adjah Mada University’s (UGM) Smart Car MCS team took home wins at the Shell Ideas 360 Awards in London earlier this month, beating four other finalists in a global competition organized for students to develop game-changing ideas to tackle energy, food and water issues.
The team, comprising four students from the university’s chemical engineering department, won the competition’s judges choice and audience choice awards for their idea of developing a smart car capable of turning plastic waste into fuel that emits low levels of carbon dioxide.
“Alhamdulillah [All praises to Allah], we were able to win both categories,” the team’s manager, Herman Amrullah, told journalists at the campus on Monday.
Other members of the team are Sholahuddin Alayyubi, Thya Laurencia Benedita Araujo, and Naufal Muflih.
Thya said to get to the top, the team had to compete in stages with over 1,000 teams from 140 participating countries. Five finalists, including the UGM Smart Car MCS team, were selected to further pitch their ideas to the judges.
The other four finalists were from the American University of Sharjah, University of Texas at Austin (United States) University of Bordeaux (France) and University of Melbourne (Australia).
UGM’s winning idea involved the use of the heat from car exhaust fumes to break down plastic waste and turn it into liquid fuel, thus helping turning a waste product into clean energy.
With the idea and supervision of their supervising lecturers Hanifrahmawan Sudibyo and Yano Surya Pradana, the team engineered a car capable of processing plastic waste into raw liquid fuel that could be further processed into fuel ready to be used as alternative energy.
“The idea also involves the use of microalgae cultivation support [MCS] technology to reduce CO2 emissions of the respective car,” Herman said.
Secretary of UGM’s chemical engineering department, Aswati Mindaryani, said more work needed to be done for the idea to be applied on the field.
“But the idea really makes us proud,” she said.
