The Department of Biotechnology has conducted an online Guest Lecture on “Chemical Engineering Principles for Biotechnologists” for II- and III-year students on March 29th 2023. The Resource person was Dr.M.Jayakumar, Assistant Professor and Chairman of Department of Chemical Engineering in Haramaya Univeristy, Ethiopia. The session started with welcome address by Dr.C.Nirmala, HoD/Biotechnology followed by presidential address given by Principal sir Dr.M.Premkumar. Ms.Manju Priyadharsini P, III-B.Tech Biotechnology student briefed the profile of the speaker and invited for the session.
The Resource person spoke about the concepts of unit processes and described the importance of each unit operations carried out in fermentation technology. Also, he depicted the work flow of production process in beverage, sugar and various industries. He then detailed about every step involved in the upstream and downstream processing, working scenario of laboratory devices like centrifuge, evaporator, distillation, centrifugation etc. in practice. The lecture was very informative with a narration of good practical examples. It covered all aspects related to the principles of Chemical Engineering acknowledging the global significance of Biotechnology. He also emphasized that any projects should bring solutions to the problems faced by society and encouraged the students to apply new technologies like AI in the field of Bioprocess Engineering.
A total of 68 students attended the lecture which went for 2 hours. It was a thought feeding session and concluded by answering the queries of students followed by vote of thanks given by Mr.Vishal R, III-Biotechnology . The feedback form was posted at the end of session and e – certificates were issued for the active participant’s.
