THE UPCOMING Latex & Synthetic Polymer Dispersions conference to be held September 10-11 at the Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel, Malaysia will be showcasing the latest innovations in rubber, Amongst the key highlights of the event is a brief presentation by Prof Dr Khairiah Haji Badri, Head of Polymer Research Centre (PORCE) on Rubber-like polyurethane from palm kernel oil by a pre-polymerisation technique.
Badri, who has worked with glove producer, Top Glove, as an R&D/QA/QC/Production chemist for three years; and with petroleum companies Bina Puri and BASF, also for three years before she joined the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), shares, “This invention is made of palm oil-based polymer. It is like a combination of knowledge in rubber and blending it into plastic by the utilisation of sustainable green material that is found in abundance in Malaysia, the palm oil. The basic reactant, the palm-based ester has already departed for precommercialization. It has been produced from our UKM pilot plant with the capacity of 500 kg per cycle”.
Not only will Badri be speaking about one of the great developments happening within the latex market, but just like all of the representatives attending this year’s event, Badri aims to improve on UKM’s innovation with the sharing of knowledge and ideas at the conference.
“It is our great hope that research from bench scale will be acknowledged industrially to ease the upscaling activities to fulfill the demand and needs of the society for sustainability. As the Head of Polymer Research Centre, UKM, Latex 2013 is a platform to introduce our centre to the heart of the polymer community” she says.