LIRA Awards Ceremony
University of Balamand students claimed first, second and third prizes in the Annual Lebanese Industrial Research Achievement Program Competition (LIRA).
The event took place in Dbayeh on November 28 and 29, 2018, where students from various universities in Lebanon presented their projects.
71 projects were distributed over different categories, where Balamand projects were at the Masters level. The projects aimed at improving the innovation and industrial aspects of the engineering design process.
In the Materials and Nanotechnology category, the graduate chemistry student Aida YOUNIS and Eng. Bilal EL KHOURY were the First Prize Winners with their project entitled: “Non Recycled Plastics Conversion into Fuels”. The project was supervised by Dr. Jane ESTEPHANE from the Chemical Engineering Department and Dr. Samer AOUAD from the Chemistry department who were also awarded the Most Distinguished Supervisors Award.
The project deals with the catalytic conversion of plastics into a valuable “syngas”.
The second prize was awarded to the MS Chemical Engineering graduates Lena Inati and Ali Saad on their project entitled: Nanomaterials for Oil and Gas processing: manufacturing by chemical routes, In the category of “Materials and Nanotechnology”. This group was supervised by Dr. Karam Jabbour and Dr. Nissrine El Hassan (Chemical Engineering Department) and the project was conducted in collaboration with the Sorbonne University (Paris) and the Technical and Engineering Department of the Lebanese Petroleum Administration, LPA (Lebanon).
In the category of “Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries”, the third prize was awarded to the MS Chemical Engineering student Joyce Saliba on her project entitled: Physico-chemical characterization of Antihyperglycemic drugs. Miss. Saliba was supervised by Dr. Nissrine El Hassan (Chemical Engineering Department) and Dr. Soula Kyriacos (Head of Research and Development in Pharmaline-Malia group).
The Department of Civil Engineering also claimed Third Place Award in the field of Materials and Nanotechnology. The project entitled “Superpave performance grading system for bitumen modified with crumb rubber” accomplished by our graduate student Joseph Dib was supervised by Dr. Edwina Saroufim and Dr. Nariman Khalil, and moderated by Dr. Najib Gerges and Eng. Nina Helal.