Professor Kalpit Shah applies research in the area of advanced thermochemical conversion systems.
He describes how the Advanced Materials, Manufacturing and Fabrication Platform facilitated a multidisciplinary team to demonstrate a novel RMIT patented fluidised bed pyrolysis technology that converts a stabilised sewage sludge into a value-added product called biochar/carbon nanomaterials.
Although the project was focused on the technology, Shah with the help from the Platform was able to connect with RMIT social and business researchers to perform social and market studies in addition to technology demonstrations, helping to build confidence with the industry partners.
Shah suggests that this would have not happened without Platform support and feels this is the best platform where multi-disciplinary teams can be formulated to derive solutions which can be immediately implemented in the field.
The Platform Director participated in all the project steering committee meetings as the RMIT-Platform representative, driving the engagement with industry, ensuring that the project remained on track and delivered outcomes that generated multi-scale benefits to the partners.
Shah suggests that such active participation from the Platform Director helped build the confidence with industry partners, leading to additional funding.
