The Research and Postgraduate Centre congratulates Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tan Jian Ping, Adjunct Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vincent Woon Kok Sin and postgraduate students, Kyle Sebastian Mulya and Malvin, from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering and Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Advancement and a Zero-Waste Economy (STARGAZE) on their recent research publication in Journal of Environmental Management, an SCIE Q1 journal with a latest impact factor of 8.4. 

This work was carried out under a collaboration formalised through a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between XMUM and IBG Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., a BioNexus status company under Bioeconomy Corporation, signed on 18 July 2024, witnessed by MOSTI Minister YB Chang Lih Kang.

Kyle, a Master's student and Malvin, a PhD student, are the first and second authors of the paper, respectively. The article, titled “Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Assessment and Geographic Information System Hotspot Mapping of Biofertilizer Application on Oil Palm Plantations”, presents an integrated framework combining Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Geographic Information System (GIS) modelling to evaluate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fertilisation practices in oil palm cultivation.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.129559

The study is underpinned by close collaboration with industry partners and extensive fieldwork. As part of the project, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tan led on-site engagement with a Malaysia Government Linked Public Listed Company biofertilizer team, providing detailed explanations on sampling protocols for data acquisition, which formed a critical basis for the research.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tan (centre, in white) explaining sampling protocols to the Malaysia Government-Linked Public Listed Company biofertilizer team during fieldwork

The study provides a comprehensive framework for quantifying emissions, mapping spatial variations, and identifying more sustainable fertilisation strategies. By integrating field-level data with geographic modelling, the research enables more precise and data-driven decision-making for plantation management and policy development. 

This work is supported by IBG Manufacturing Sdn Bhd (EENG/0049), Guangdong Provincial Project (2024QN11L096), Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Integrated Communication, Sensing and Computation for Ubiquitous Internet of Things through the research grant (No. 2023B1212010007), the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) for the start-up grant (G0101000268), and Xiamen University Malaysia for the Xiamen University Malaysia Research Fund (XMUMRF/2023-C11/IENG/0057, IENG/0069, and XMUMRF/2024-C14/IENG/0075).