Institut Teknologi Bandung

In this competition, the team from ITB won the first place by devising an analgesic and anti-inflammatory iodine for wounds from renewable compounds. The compounds used for the base of this cure are bandotan leaves and chitosan, a substance derived from crab shell. This innovative product takes form in spray, and combining 2 functions of existing products, which are wounds cure and wounds closure. This product is used by spraying the cure to the opened wound. The extract of bandotan leaves and chitosan will escalate the wound's healing by forming a wounds closure layer which will prevent bacteria from infecting the wound. Yet, the layer still allows oxygen to pass through; hence the opened wound will desiccate faster. This uniqueness is one of the advantages of this wound cure, which was named "Chira". "This product's idea came from a personal experience from our friends. When he was a kid, he fell from his bike and treated with bandotan leaves by his neighbor," explained Hilman.

In the making process of this product, Hilman and friends had experienced some difficulties, especially in finding the basic compound, which are bandotan leaves. "We finally bought the leaves from somebody else, due to the scarcity of this type of leaf in Bandung. It turned out that ITB, our own campus, also has the bandotan tree!" recalled Yohanes Rico, who is more familiarly called Yoko. In the making process, this team was guided by the experts of design and development of chemical product, Ir. Gerardus Handi Argasetya, MT, and Dianika Lestari, S.T., M.T. "In the beginning, we were afraid that our cure liquid will not be able to be sprayed because it's too thick. But after filtering, the liquid was finally able to be sprayed without reducing its functions," added Yoko.

"The most interesting part of our experience is when we held an expo to introduce and exhibit our designed chemical product. At that time, we took in a lot of advices from visitors about our product," said Hilman. Hilman also told that in the final stage, they have to present their product and answer the juries' questions, which were not much different from visitors' questions. The juries of this competition were the experts in the prestigious chemical product producer, like BASF, Unilever, and Nutrifood.

"We are so happy to be the winner of this competition because this is our first competition. Besides that, we also had a lot of precious experiences and we are able to apply science which is taught in our major field," said Anggi.