Dr. Eng Januarti Jaya Ekaputri ST MT who won the first place of the Mining and Minerals Industry Institute (MMII) Research Award Competition 2019

ITS Campus, ITS News-lecturer of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Dr. Eng Januarti Jaya Ekaputri ST MT, successfully processed the hazardous and toxic substances (B3) from the industry into environmentally friendly concrete. The research finally managed to win the first prize in the event of the Mining and Minerals Industry Institute (MMII) Research Award Competition 2019 at Four Seasons Hotel, Jakarta, Wednesday (27/11).

This woman, who is familiarly called Yani, admits that developing this innovation is not easy. The reason is that government regulation states that some waste from the industry is B3. So the challenge is to increase this innovation from the laboratory scale to the industrial scale is also getting bigger.

The waste used in this research is the waste of coal ash both fly ash and bottom ash. Yani mentioned, actually the waste is not toxic. “But the government states all of them as B3 waste” she said.

In addition to being beneficial to the industry, according to Yani, such innovations also have a positive effect on the government. “We can spend all the industrial waste by putting it in cement to make environmentally friendly concrete” said the lecturer of the Departement of Civil Engineering ITS.

And to increase the force power of the concrete press and its prime production, Yani also incorporated bacteria into it. Said Yani, the bacteria can also live and thrive in this environmentally friendly concrete.

Further explained Yani, bacteria role in concrete by reacting with the dissolved lime in concrete into CaCO3 (calcite) that fills the pores in concrete, so that concrete becomes dense. Concrete containing waste is usually fragile, but with the bacteria added can be strong and positive. “It can even cure cracks in concrete,” he said.

All finalists together with the director of Mining Industry Indonesia (MIND ID) include PT Freeport, PT Timah, PT Bukit Asam, PT Inalum, PT Aneka Tambang, and others

Research Proposal titled SIBELHIJAU: The Innovation of environmentally friendly concrete products with the content of microbes encapsulated in B3 waste is also as proof to the government that Indonesia has a better infrastructure and beneficial. “So we can be proud to be Indonesian,” she said.

MMII Research Award Competition 2019 itself is the award program for the best research proposal in Indonesia in the field of exploration, mining, and downstream of minerals and coal (MINERBA). The results of Yani’s research is to support the development of exploration, mining and downstream of the mining. The total funding is in Rp 3 billion for 2-3 selected proposals.

Except ITS, there are also a researcher from Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) who won second place and Universitas Indonesia (UI) which won third place. The competition was followed by 124 proposals until it was selected into 25 flagship proposals. Subsequently, it became 10 finalists and finally set five grand finalists. (sof/rev/ITS Public Relations)