Miradatul Najwa Muhd Rodhi

Dragon Fruit Foliage Plant-Based Coagulant for Treatment of Concentrated Latex Effluent: Comparison of Treatment with Ferric Sulfate

The effectiveness of dragon fruit foliage as a natural coagulant for treatment of concentrated latex effluent was investigated and compared with ferric sulfate, a chemical coagulant. Dragon fruit is a round and often red-colored fruit with scales-like texture and is native to south American countries which is also cultivated and heavily marketed in southeast Asian countries. Its foliage represents a part of its overall plant system. Latex effluent is one of the main byproduct from rubber processing factories in Malaysia. Three main parameters investigated were chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), and turbidity of effluent. Coagulation experiments using jar test were performed with a flocculation system where the effects of latex effluent pH as well as coagulation dosage on coagulation effectiveness were examined. The highest recorded COD, SS, and turbidity removal percentages for foliage were observed for effluent pH 10 at 94.7, 88.9, and 99.7%, respectively. It is concluded that the foliage showed tremendous potential as a natural coagulant for water treatment purposes. The foliage could be used in the pretreatment stage of Malaysian latex effluent prior to secondary treatment.

Thermal Behavior of Tacca leontopetaloides Starch-Based Biopolymer

Starch is used whenever there is a need for natural elastic properties combined with low cost of production. However, the hydrophilic properties in structural starch will decrease the thermal performance of formulated starch polymer. Therefore, the effect of glycerol, palm olein, and crude palm oil (CPO), as plasticizers, on the thermal behavior of Tacca leontopetaloides starch incorporated with natural rubber in biopolymer production was investigated in this paper. Four different formulations were performed and represented by TPE1, TPE2, TPE3, and TPE4. The compositions were produced by using two-roll mill compounding. The sheets obtained were cut into small sizes prior to thermal testing. The addition of glycerol shows higher enthalpy of diffusion in which made the material easily can be degraded, leaving to an amount of 6.6% of residue. Blending of CPO with starch (TPE3) had a higher thermal resistance towards high temperature up to 310°C and the thermal behavior of TPE2 only gave a moderate performance compared with other TPEs.

Removal of ammoniacal nitrogen ion in old landfill leachate by using biological stripping column

Ammonia stripping is a simple desorption process used to reduce ammonia content in wastewater stream. It is often easier and less expensive to remove nitrogen from wastewater in the form of ammonia rather than to convert it to nitrate-nitrogen before discharged to environment. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the ability of the sewage based bacteria use to remove the ammoniacal nitrogen ion in landfill leachate by using biological striping column. The system was setup by introducing activated carbon inoculums with sewage based bacteria as a biostripping media and were conducted at room temperature with a fixed hydraulic retention time (HRT) for 56 hours. The biological stripping column was operated at constant leachate feeding rates of 20 ml/min. At early stage of the experiment characterization of landfill leachate was measured including pH, COD, BOD5, alkalinity, TS, SS, NH4+ and heavy metal ion. In this study, three difference sizes of bio-stripping media was use to measured the effect of surface area to amount of ammonia gas release. Ammonia gas release from this system was channeled to sulfuric acid absorption column to recover the ammonia gas released in form of ammonium sulfate. The lowest ammonium ion concentration level after stripping process reduce to 80 mg/l and the reduction percentages of the ion are around 84%. Maximum ammonium sulfate produced from this experiment was around 244.0 mg/l.

Comparative Study Between Isolated Xanthomonas Campestris from Rotten Cabbage and Xanthamonas Campestris Culture by YDC Media as Substrate

Xanthomonas campestris is a gram-negative bacterium which causes black rot disease in varieties of brassicas which include cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, turnip and radish. The cabbage samples were collected locally from Cameron Highlands, Pahang Darul Makmur. The bacteria were locally isolated and cultured to produce pure species of the bacteria which later several analysis and a series of fermentation was done in order to obtain Xanthan gum. Fermentation procedure conducted through shake flask fermentation. Five different culture and media combination were fermented to compare the final results of each substrate. On specific time intervals e.g.: every 2 h sampling, several analysis were conducted to determine bacteria cell mass and glucose concentration of the fermentation samples. After the completion of the fermentation, Xanthan gums were recovered through precipitation by isopropanol.

Coagulant from Chemically Modified Fish Scale for Textile Wastewater Treatment

Textile manufacturing is one of the largest industrial users of process water. This production gives rise to the major pollutant in this industry where the discharging residue from dyeing process contains organic and inorganic compounds and some potentially toxic solvents. This effluent is the environmental challenge for textile industry where the wastewater often rich in color, high pH, high Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) also low biodegradability. Therefore, complete dye removing technology of users and environmentally friendly is very necessary. In this research, biodegradable material for coagulation-flocculation process tailored for textile wastewater treatment was developed based on polymeric material from fish scales. This coagulant with a particle size of 75 µm was tested for real wastewater from industry via jar tests to determine the optimum operating condition such as the dosage of coagulant and pH. The treated textile wastewater was found to be complying with the Parameter Limits of Effluents of Standards A and B from Environmental Quality (Sewage and Industrial Effluents) Regulations 1978, from the result, the optimum pH and dosage is 5.0 mg/l of coagulant dosage at pH 5.0. COD reduction is about 98 % meanwhile the reduction of colour achieves more than 90 %.

Effect of Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) Treatment on FTIR Profile of Agarwood Waste from Hydrodistillation Process

Theestablishment of Aquilariaspp in producingagarwoodisgaining more and more attentionlately, especially withgrowinginterest in agarwoodoilextraction. Thus, theoilextractionsomehow produces abundantwaste of processedagarwood.Theintent of thisresearchistoutilizewastefromagarwoodoilextractionprocess,wherethesilicacontentin thiswastewasdetermined.A preliminarystudywasconductedontheeffect of hydrochloricacidtreatments ofagarwoodwasteon FTIR profile. Aftersoakingovernightwithdifferentacidconcentration; 0.3M, 0.5M and 1M, allthesamplesweredried and analyzedbyusingfouriertransform infra red (FTIR). Theresult shows theexistence of silicagroup in thewaste at 1031 cm-1peak. Thehighestsilicaintensityfoundwas86%,obtainedfromthesample of agarwoodwastetreatedwith 0.3M HCl.However, theintensitydecreasedproportionaltoincreasingacidconcentrationduetothedecrement of thesilicaconcentrationdetectedbytheinstrument.

The Potential Use of Tacca leontopetaloides as Green Material in Manufacturing Automotive Part

The use of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) in making parts of the vehicle such as a weather strip at the door and car window, floor mat, and dashboard is widespread. The commonly being used as in automotive parts manufacturing is styrene based TPE. Styrene based TPE released harmful gas, volatile organic compound (VOC) to the environment when it expose to the high temperature. Therefore, the new material with properties of thermoplastic elastomers is made from Natural rubber blend with local Tacca leontopetaloides starch and silica extracted from rice husk (as filler). Investigation on the mechanical properties by using Universal Testing Machine (UTM) found that the green material produced has potential to replace the existing floor mat used in automotive production. Indeed, when the starch was plasticized by glycerol and the volume of Natural rubber was varies, the value of tensile strength of green material produced was higher compared with existing floor mat. The VOCs released when its expose to the high temperature was much lower than the existing floor mat used. On top of that, Tacca leontopetaloides starchhas potential to create low cost of new green materials in manufacturing of automotive parts.

Kinetic study of free and immobilized enzymes for bioconversion of tapioca slurry into BioSugar

This paper highlights the kinetic parameter of the free and immobilized enzymes (alpha-amylase, glucoamylase and cellulase) systems. The kinetic parameters were calculated using Lineweaver-Burk plot. The Michaelis constant (Km) of free alpha-amylase, glucoamylase and cellulase were 4.542, 1.069 and 9.082 mg/mL, respectively. For the immobilized enzymes (alphaamylase, glucoamylase and cellulase), the Km values were 4.488, 2.196, 6.309 mg/mL, respectively. In general, the results showed immobilized alpha-amylase performed better compared to free alpha-amylase. However, for glucoamylase the Km value doubled which indicated the affinity reduction of enzyme towards the substrate. The affinity of immobilized alpha-amylase and cellulase were equal or better than the free alpha-amylase and cellulase. The overall results for immobilized enzymes system showed that glucoamylase has higher affinity towards the substrate followed by alpha-amylase and cellulase. Therefore, the immobilized enzymes system has high potential for bioconversion of tapioca slurry into glucose.

Effect of methanol and sulfuric acid on hydrolysis of coconut dregs for glucose recovery

Coconut dregs are a waste produced from coconut milk production used as animal food and have the potential for glucose production. Objective of this study was to investigate the conversion of this cellulosic material into glucose through hydrolysis process with different type of hydrolysis solvents, such as sulfuric acid and methanol. Different concentrations of acid were 0.5% to 1.0%, concentrations of methanol were 10% to 50% and distilled water as a control. Higher glucose concentration produced from hydrolysis using these solvents were 0.38 g/l, 0.15 g/l and 0.04 g/l for 1% of sulfuric acid, 50% of methanol and distilled water, respectively. In addition, chemical structure changed in coconut dregs before and after hydrolysis of coconut dregs has been identified using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). It was found that hemicelluloses and lignin degraded during hydrolysis using both solvent. Meanwhile, the hydrolysis of substrate by distilled water remains unchanged in their chemical properties compared to the coconut dregs. Other than that, elemental analyzer was used to analyze total carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen in the substrate. Thus, the results presented in this study indicate that coconut dregs can be a promising source for advanced renewable glucose production.

Extraction of essential oil from biologically inoculated agarwood

Agarwood becomes one of the valuable forest products compared to others due to its quality which makes the wood is in high demand. High yield of agarwood is used as a medicinal product and this has been recorded in the Sahih Muslim, which dates back to approximately the eighth century, and in the Ayurvedic medicinal text known as Susruta Samhita. Agarwood oil and its incense are used for their fragrant properties. Therefore, it is commonly used as perfumes and has been recorded in the Old Testament. Biologically inoculated agarwood is new to research due to the development of bio based inoculants. Chemical based extracted oil and hydrosol claims resulting low quality of resin formation, thus produce low quality of essential oil. Replacement for bio resin formation will ensure the safety of end product used for medicine, perfumery and food industry. Agarwoods essential oil production has been lacking in terms of maintaining the high grading and the yield due to the loss of major volatile component that effect the aroma.