UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA NEWS – Students are not only required to excel academically in class, but also to knowledge they gain in society. There are many types of community service activities that can be done. One of them is by helping people to process natural resources they have. Favian Rafif Firdaus, a student of Faculty of Pharmacy Universitas Airlangga did it.
Favian and his four colleagues conducted DILAN (Simple Distillation) Training program in Codo Village, Malang. This training program targets local residents as participants. In this training, participants are taught how to do distillation process as it is done in a laboratory with simple equipment.
“Initially, we were inspired by distillation devices in the laboratory. We also tried to make our own version of the device by utilizing objects in the house such as rice steamer, ” Favian said.
The main ingredient which is processed by simple distillation is lemongrass oil. Through a distillation process, lemongrass oil can be processed into useful products such as aromatherapy candles, bath soaps, and disinfectant. The products added value will also improve and boost the economy of local residents.
Favian revealed, in Codo Village there was a program, where people planted lemongrass in the yard. However, residents have not been able to process it properly and it is only used as kitchen spice.
“We hope that with this training, residents can have more choices to process the lemongrass,” explained the pharmacy students from class 2016.
This program will be continued until June. Favian and his colleagues will continue to visit Codo Village and provide DILAN training regularly. Even though distillation is a relatively complex laboratory activity, local residents are trained well and quite enthusiastic about it.
“Local residents welcomed the program enthusiastically, because this was something new for them. They are happy because they can process lemongrass oil into a variety of products, “Favian said.
Not only lemongrass oil, Favian plans to continue and develop this program. He plans to implement DILAN training in other areas with different natural resources. The general public are expected to be able to process natural materials, especially in the form of oil, into products with added value. (*)