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Energy Management systems (EnMS) is an effective measure to manage energy utilization, drive for continuous improvement in energy performance and sustain business competitiveness. The public expectations i.e., greenhouse gas emission limits and zero liquid discharge will put additional burdens to oil companies. Many companies have initiated to deploy energy program in response to these concerns. However, impact of implementing the program has just been seen. Concerned companies are far away from achieving an appropriate expectations. Most of oil companies consider EnMS as an ambition, rather than an important criterion to be applied in all levels of the businesses. To overcome the abovementioned issues, this paper presents proven approaches to manage the energy efficiency. As for the primary objective, it presents a customized EnMS in enhancing utilization of energy resources. The customized EnMS has been established in accordance to expectations of international industrial best practices. It can be divided into: (1) establish energy visions, (2) select energy performance indicators, (3) identify energy improvement approaches and (4) monitor and manage energy performance tracking. In addition, case studies and best practices are also included in the customized EnMS to address the flexibilities. The second objective is to describe systematic tactics to expedite the effective implementation of EnMS. Tactics include: engage higher management commitment, subscribe to reputable standards, impels for energy savings and embed EnMS into existing management programs. Energy improvement tips are also included into comprehensive framework. Lastly, the third objective is to illustrate the customized EnMS at an undisclosed oil company.

Energy performance has becoming one of the top global discussion subjects due to the facts of hiked in fossil fuel price, changed in living standards, increased in Green House Gas (GHG) awareness as well as fair business practices such as subsidies and environment regulations. It has pushed societal expectations on oil companies’ especially National Oil Companies (NOCs) located in Middle East to rigorously conserve energy and explore ways to enhance its performance. In current industrial practice, Energy Efficiency Programs (EEP) is one of typical initiatives that have been evolving since the late 1990s. However, its progress has just been seen and unfortunately, NOCs are far away from a matured management in addressing EEP expectations. Most of NOCs consider EEP as an ambition, rather than a condition applying to all levels of the businesses. In fact, cost reduction is a main focus rather than to execute right energy conservation strategies and more seriously, lack of a dedicated focus to efficiently use energy resources. This paper presents a methodology that can induce rapid deployment and implementation of a customized EEP. The methodology requires to embed the EEP into the Operation Excellence Model (OEM), a well structured organization’ management framework model as defined by European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM). Since OEM is company-wide initiative, therefore it can be a perfect vehicle to drive EEP in reaching maturity. Through a successful case study, this methodology has proven to drastically improve the implementation pace of EEP and drive tremendous reduction in energy consumption as well as GHG emissions.

The urban cities of Malaysia are enclosed by greenery, mainly oil palm plantation which it covers 4.98 Mha of the land area of the country. Due to the huge volume of oil palm availability, palm biomass appears to be one of the key concerns to the country. Space and technologies are needed to allocate the resulting palm biomass, which its volume is directly proportional to the amount of palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) being processed. Due to the characteristics of biomass being low density, porous and low calorific value, the biomass may be integrated with other source of useful material, say waste industrial oil, to boost up its efficiency for incineration while symbiotically tackling the waste oil disposal difficulty. The Malaysian government has set a target on the biomass generated renewable energy. However, the realisation of the energy target is challenging. The crop aging and promotion of replanting policy by the government may reduce the availability of biomass, which threatens the accomplishment of the energy target. The adapted biomass with higher energy value may be able to tackle the mentioned threat, enhancing the energy security of the country. In this work, a biomass energy supply plan is proposed and a simplified supply network design is presented.

Temperature tuning of spectral broadening induced by a nonlinear grating is experimentally demonstrated. The bandwidth is observed to decrease as temperature increases, corresponding to a red-shift in the high dispersion region of the Bragg grating.

Malaysia has a plethora of biomass that can be utilized in a sustainable manner to produce bio-products for circular green economy. At the 15th Conference of Parties in Copenhagen, Malaysia stated to voluntarily reduce its emissions intensity of gross domestic product by upto 40% by 2020 from 2005 level. Natural resources e.g. forestry and agricultural resources will attribute in achieving these goals. This paper investigates optimum bio-based systems, such as bioenergy and biorefinery, and their prospects in sustainable development in Malaysia, while analyzing comparable cases globally. Palm oil industry will continue to play a major role in deriving products and contributing to gross national income in Malaysia. Based on the current processing capacity, one tonne of crude palm oil (CPO) production is associated with nine tonnes of biomass generation. Local businesses tend to focus on products with low-risk that enjoy subsidies, e.g. Feed-in-Tariff, such as bioenergy, biogas, etc. CPO biomass is utilized to produce biogas, pellets, dried long fibre and bio-fertilizer and recycle water. It is envisaged that co-production of bio-based products, food and pharmaceutical ingredients, fine, specialty and platform chemicals, polymers, alongside biofuel and bioenergy from biomass is possible to achieve overall sustainability by the replacement of fossil resources. Inception of process integration gives prominent innovative biorefinery configurations, an example demonstrated recently, via extraction of recyclable, metal, high value chemical (levulinic acid), fuel, electricity and bio-fertilizer from municipal solid waste or urban waste. Levulinic acid yield by only 5 weight% of waste feedstock gives 1.5 fold increase in profitability and eliminates the need for subsidies such as gate fees paid by local authority to waste processor. Unsustainable practices include consumable food wastage, end-of-pipe cleaning and linear economy that must be replaced by sustainable production and consumption, source segregation and process integration, and product longevity and circular economy.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) uses photosensitizers (PS) that are excited with light to generate ROS in the presence of oxygen for treating various diseases. PS also has the potential use as photodynamic insecticides (PDI) and for light-inactivation of Leishmania for photodynamic vaccination (PDV). PDT-inactivated Leishmania are non-viable, but remain immunologically competent as whole-cell vaccines against leishmaniasis, and as a universal carrier for delivery of add-on vaccines against other infectious and malignant diseases. We have screened novel PS, including Zn- and Si-phthalocyanines (PC) for differential PDT activities against Leishmania, insect and mammalian cells in vitro to assess their PDI and PDV potential. Here, Zn-PC were conjugated with various functional groups. The conjugates were examined for uptake by cells as a prerequisite for their susceptibility to light-inactivation. PDT sensitivity was found to vary with cell types and PS used. PDI potential of several PS was demonstrated by their mosquito larvicidal PDT activities in vitro. PDT-inactivated Leishmania were stored frozen for PDV in several ongoing studies: [1] Open label trial with 20 sick dogs for immunotherapy of canine leishmaniasis after chemotherapy in Naples, Italy. Clinical follow-up for >3 years indicate that the PDV prolongs their survival; [2] PDV of murine models with a human lung cancer vaccine showed dramatic tumor suppression; [3] Open label trial of multiple PDV via compassionate access to 4 advanced cancer patients showed no clinically adverse effects. Two subjects remain alive. Genetic modifications of Leishmania are underway to further enhance their safety and efficacy for PDV by installation of activable mechanisms for self-destruction and spontaneous light-emission. Keyword list: Photosensitizer, phthalocyanine, porphyrin, photo-inactivation, singlet oxygen, Leishmania, vaccine carrier, vaccination, immunotherapy, canine leishmaniasis, lung cancer, mouse tumor model, compassionate trial, vaccine safety.

Part 1 of the series (Chew, I. M. L.; Foo, D. C. Y.; Ng, D. K. S.; Tan, R. R. Flowrate Targeting Algorithm for Interplant Resource Conservation Network. Part 1: Unassisted Integration Scheme. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. DOI: 10.1021/ie901802m.) proposes a systematic three-step targeting algorithm for unassisted integration scheme for interplant resource conservation network (IPRCN), where cross-plant streams within the pinch region can be used to achieve minimum resource flow rate targets. However, the unassisted scheme does not hold true for all cases. Part 2 of the series explores additional material recovery to be realized by sending cross-plant streams outside the pinch region. This is known as the assisted integration scheme. Appropriate identification of waste streams as the cross-plant streams is an important step in locating the minimum flow rate targets for these cases. The effect of pinch shifting and the generation of new waste streams are also investigated.