Mohamad Anuar Kamaruddin

Sustainable treatment of landfill leachate

Landfill leachate is a complex liquid that contains excessive concentrations of biodegradable and non-biodegradable products including organic matter, phenols, ammonia nitrogen, phosphate, heavy metals, and sulfide. If not properly treated and safely disposed, landfill leachate could be an impending source to surface and ground water contamination as it may percolate throughout soils and subsoils, causing adverse impacts to receiving waters. Lately, various types of treatment methods have been proposed to alleviate the risks of untreated leachate. However, some of the available techniques remain complicated, expensive and generally require definite adaptation during process. In this article, a review of literature reported from 2008 to 2012 on sustainable landfill leachate treatment technologies is discussed which includes biological and physical–chemical techniques, respectively.

Semi-aerobic stabilized landfill leachate treatment by ion exchange resin: isotherm and kinetic study

This study was carried out to investigate the treatability of ion exchange resin (Indion MB 6 SR) for the removal of chromium (VI), aluminium (III), zinc (II), copper (II), iron (II), and phosphate (PO4)3−, chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) and colour from semi-aerobic stabilized leachate by batch test. A range of ion exchange resin dosage was tested towards the removal efficiency of leachate parameters. It was observed that equilibrium data were best represented by the Langmuir model for metal ions and Freundlich was ideally fit for COD, NH3-N and colour. Intra particle diffusion model, pseudo first-order and pseudo second-order isotherm models were found ideally fit with correlation of the experimental data. The findings revealed that the models could describe the ion exchange kinetic behaviour efficiently, which further suggests comprehensive outlook for the future research in this field.

Chemical Waste and Allied Products

This review of literature published in 2014 focuses on waste related to chemical and allied products. The topics cover the waste management practices, hospital waste, pesticide waste, chemical wastewater, pesticide wastewater and pharmaceutical wastewater. The other topics include aerobic treatment, anaerobic treatment, sorption and ozonation.

Removal of direct blue 71 from aqueous solution by adsorption on rice husk carbon-clinoptilolite composite adsorbent

The adsorption performance of rice husk carbon-clinoptilolite (RHC-clinop) for the removal of Direct Blue 71 (DB71) in batch mode was investigated. The RHC-clinop was prepared by pre-determined mixes of clinoptilolite (clinop), rice husk carbon (RHC), and ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The OPC was used as binding agent. The adsorption experiments were conducted at different conditions of adsorbent dosage (0.21.2g), solution pH (2-12) and initial concentration (25-400 mg/L). DB71 adsorption uptake was found to increase with increase in initial concentration and contact time. The optimum adsorption of DB71 was favorable at pH 10 with adsorbent dosage of 1.0g. The experimental data was fitted well with Freundlich isotherm. Adsorption kinetic was found to follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic model with good correlation. The result indicates that the RHC-clinop is suitable for the removal of azo dye by adsorption process.

Waste to Wealth: Recovery of Recyclable Items and Biodegradable Wastes from Night Markets at Seberang Perai Selatan, Penang

This study evaluates the potential of recyclable items and biodegradable wastes recovered from selected locations of night markets across Seberang Perai Selatan district, Penang. Three different sizes of night market covering 9 study locations were evaluated based on waste types and the amount generated. By using the coning and quartering technique, it was observed that bigger sizes of night market had higher recyclable items potential. In particular, 177.41 kg/day of wastes discarded which equivalent to RM 104.05 worth of recyclable items. Small night market size was found to only generate 21.1 kg/day of wastes and equivalent to RM 13.55 worth of recyclable items. In terms of organics recovered, about 587 kg of wastes identified as brown organics. Meanwhile, it was recorded that green organics made up about 235 kg out of 822 kg total biodegradable wastes. This study demonstrates that night market has the potential for recovery of recyclable items and organic composting which can reduce the amount of solid waste being disposed at the landfills.

Preparation of rice husk carbon-clinoptilolite composite adsorbent for color removal from real textile wastewater: Effects of operating conditions

This study investigates the optimal operating conditions for preparation of rice husk carbon-clinoptilolite (RHC-clinop) composite adsorbent for color removal from dye house facility. Central composite design (CCD) was used to determine the effects of the four preparation variables; clinoptilolite (clinop), rice husk carbon (RHC), ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and water binder ratio (W/B) on percentage color removal and attrition. The significant factors on each experimental design response were identified from the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The optimum operating conditions for RHCclinop preparation were obtained by using clinop, RHC, OPC and W/B of 16g, 9g, 38g and 15mL, respectively, which resulted in 92% of color removal and 17% of attrition. FTIR analysis showed the chemical changes on the surface of the RHC-clinop prepared before and after batching tests. The RHC-clinop prepared in this study could be a promising composite adsorbent for dye waste water treatment due to high efficiency of color removal and least attrition.

Shallow groundwater hydrochemistry assessment of engineered landfill and dumpsite

In this paper, hydrochemistry analysis was performed at two different landfill site that is Matang and Beriah landfills, to evaluate the environmental risks associated with leachate flowing into groundwater resources. Selected parameters considered were heavy metal and physico-chemical properties of the groundwater samples. Analysis for Matang Landfill shows that the pollutant species seem to accumulate within MT1 that were located at the southeast of the landfill site. The pollutant species have tendency to migrate and disperse toward the southeast side of the landfill site which are MT 1, MT4 AND MT5. Meanwhile, the analysis for Beriah Landfill site shows that the contaminant tends to migrate to the south west direction of the landfill where AP6 and AP7 show the highest concentration of Heavy Metals, Cl−, Mg2+ and Ca2. The concentration of heavy metal is higher in Beriah Landfill as compared to Matang Landfill which was due to the type of landfill itself, where Matang Landfill operates as sanitary landf...

Adsorption studies of COD and Fe2+ from stabilized landfill leachate on activated carbon and calcite containing alginate

In this study, composite adsorbent was produced from the combination of activated carbon (AC) and calcite by four (4) different mixing ratios (AC:Calcite) of 9:1, 7:3, 1:1, 3:7, 1:9. The mixture was mixed with alginate as the binder. The composite adsorbent was tested in batch of experimental study to observe the effectiveness of removing COD and Fe2+ from sample of leachate collected from semi-aerobic sanitary landfill at Pulau Burung, Penang, Malaysia. The effect on contact time was conducted to observe its impact on the adsorption of COD and Fe2+. Besides, the adsorption kinetic model was also conducted to study the mechanism of adsorption process by applying pseudo-first order and pseudo-second-order rate equations. Based on experimental results, optimum removal of COD and Fe2+ was obtained at mixing ratio of 7:3 with optimum removal of 54.6% for COD and 68.06% for Fe2+. This result indicates that high amount of AC in mixing ratio of adsorbent contributed to the highest removal of both COD and Fe2+. I...

Potential use of Plastic Waste as Construction Materials: Recent Progress and Future Prospect

Plastic associates products based have been considered as the world most consumer packaging solution. However, substantial quantities of plastic consumption have led to exponential increase of plastic derived waste. Recycling of plastic waste as valued added product such as concrete appears as one of promising solution for alternative use of plastic waste. This paper summarized recent progress on the development of concrete mixture which incorporates plastic wastes as partial aggregate replacement during concrete manufacturing. A collection of data from previous studies that have been researched which employed plastic waste in concrete mixtures were evaluated and conclusions are drawn based on the laboratory results of all the mentioned research papers studied.

Human Element as the Contributing Factor Towards Construction Accidents from the Perspective of Malaysian Residential Construction Industry

Malaysian construction industry is crucial in the development of the country towards becoming a developed nation. However, the positive growth of Malaysian construction industry is being affected with high fatality rate. There are four main elements contributing to occupational accidents in the industry comprising of immediate factor (human and worksite) and underlying factor (management and external). Human element is considered the most significant and obvious contributing factor towards occupational accidents in the construction industry. This element is formulated by the four sub-elements, human physical, experience, attitude and behavior. 13 residential projects comprising of seven high-rise and six low-rise projects were chosen in Penang, Malaysia. 135 and 13 respondents were selected for questionnaire survey and interview respectively. Attitude and behavior registered the highest mean average in human element. Comparison made between high-rise and low-rise projects respondents shown that there is no significant difference in the perspective of these two groups towards human element.