School of Engineering (ENG)
Petroleum engineering student impresses judges
Wed, Mar 21, 2012
Kayode Adeoye-Akinde impressed the judges with his presentation and ability to answer questions from the floor on his research on coal-bed methane reservoirs as a future energy source.
The competition – Institution of Engineering (IET) Solent Young Professionals Present Around the World – is a global competition for students, recent graduates, apprentices and young professionals aged 18-26 years. Regional finals took place in the UK, North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
The UK competition took place in Southampton in front of an audience and panel of judges and took into account presentation skills and impact on the audience. As runner-up, in addition to winning a cash prize of £100, Kayode wins membership of the IET and was given a certificate of excellence.
Kayode said: “I am really pleased to have done so well in such a prestigious global competition. It will look good on my CV, but the reward is also that my presentation skills have improved because I was able to talk to technical and non-technical people and make myself clear.
“I'd always wanted to be an engineer and studying petroleum engineering seemed to be the perfect solution to this.
“The feedback I received from the judges was invaluable and one of the judges told me he has learnt something he never knew about before which was pleasing. My project supervisor, Dr Prashant Jadhawar, and my classmate Michael were also supportive.”
Kayode’s presentation was based on his final year project for his BEng course. He said: “The research is still ongoing and it involves injecting carbon dioxide into a coal seam in order to increase methane production after primary production. With increase in demand for energy, this could be one of the future energy sources if better technology is developed to extract this unconventional gas. It is estimated that U.K has 2.9 trillion cubic meter of this gas and if one per cent of this reserve is recovered, it could provide natural gas for the UK for three years. With UK's significant amounts of coal, there is bound to be methane reserves. In the near future, coal beds could also be used for carbon capture and storage, which means the process could be 'recyclable'.”
His final year supervisor Dr Jadhawar said: “Being a graduate student of the first batch of petroleum engineering students here at Portsmouth he has set a great example for his colleagues and the next generation of students joining this course.”
The IET’s regional young professional team works closely with the University of Portsmouth’s IET on campus team, led by School of Engineering academic Manish Malik, to arrange and promote personal and professional development events and competitions.
Mr Malik said: “That Kayode was told his presentation was just a few points behind the winner’s shows how well he did. Here, at Portsmouth, we are an enhanced academic partner with the IET and run on-campus events to encourage our young engineers to be fully workplace ready when they graduate.”
IET on campus is a small team of dedicated students, supervised by Mr Malik. Their recent events include workshops with external speakers on innovation – examining why products designed by Apple are successful while many other similar products fail; getting a job – examining engineers’ assessment centre days and how to shine; and research – examining the different steps of the research cycle from development of new concepts to their use in industry.