Shiena Katrine Alejandrino, Kimberly Arpia, and Joffrey Itutud, BS Chemical Engineering students, presented their thesis proposal on the "Recovery of Silver Metal from Mining Wastewater by Electrodeposition using Reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO) Electrodes" last May 22, 2022. 

Silver is among the critical metals that are projected to have reduced supply in the next century. Hence, it will be beneficial if we can recover silver from mining effluents instead of disposing it to the environment. Electrochemical recovery of metals is an old technology but with the emergence of new materials such as reduced graphene (rGO), it is necessary to assess the impact of operating parameters to maximize recovery. 

Their study will focus on investigating the effect and optimizing the process variables such as electrolysis time, applied voltage, and temperature on the recovery of silver metal by electrodeposition. Moreover, the kinetics of silver recovery will be studied.

Mary Quincy Abad, Jon Larsen Alvarado, Gene Vincent Geraldino, Christian Jules Morcelos, and Jalliah Sharelle Tabaniag, BS Petroleum Engineering students, presented their thesis proposal on the "Soybean Lecithin as Biobased Surfactant to Stabilize Oil-in-Water Emulsions for Enhanced Oil Recovery" last May 22, 2022. 

With the depletion of fossil fuels, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) emerged as a powerful technology to efficiently recover oil deposits trapped in rocks. EOR uses a surfactant solution to flood the rocks, thus extracting the oil by forming emulsions. However, current surfactants used in EOR are expensive and not environmentally friendly.

Their study will focus on investigating the use of bio-based surfactants and investigating the effect of process parameters such as surfactant concentration, pH, and salinity on emulsion stability and oil recovery.