[Unpad.ac.id, 14/05/2013] Unpad Rector Ganjar Kurnia and the Director of PT. Grafindo Nusantara, Anton Riyanto recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Unpad Rectorate Building (14/5), which marked the establishment of cooperation among the two institutions. The cooperation focuses on research for Indonesian graphite potentials, led by a team of researchers, consisting of I Made Joni, M.Sc., Bambang Mukti Wibawa, M.S., Darmawan Hidayat, M.T., Dr. Camellia Panatarani, and Setianto, M.Si., from Instrumentation and Functional Processing, Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMIPA) Unpad.
“Graphite is derived from rocks. Processing and refining graphite can only be done when we cooperate with Grafindo Nusantara,” said I Made Joni.
According to Riyanto, graphite is a very strategic mineral. The company has been exploring its potentials for some time and realizes that additional expertise from a team of academic researchers is compulsory to explore further the potentials. “The cooperation is not limited to commercial aspect. It actually stresses research development, particularly on Indonesian graphite. Accordingly, we fund all the research activities fully,” said he.
Beside a team from the department of physics, Riyanto also has had a team from faculty of geological engineering Unpad to build research center in Bandung to support all research activities.
Unpad rector highly appreciates the cooperation, saying that “the university is now developing all kinds of partnership with third parties or industries. What’s more, we are now focusing on research of which outcomes are products,” said he.
