Mohamad Najmi Masri

Treatment of Oily Waste Using Activated Carbon from Agriculture Waste

Malaysia is one of the main crude oil exporters among countries in Association of South East Asian Nations, ASEAN. Therefore, oil is widely used in many sectors, especially in transportation sectors, and it will produce a lot of oil-based waste that will harm environment. Activated carbon can help to treat this waste by using the permeable reactive barrier (PRB) concept. At the same time, Malaysia is also an agricultural based country which produces a massive amount of agricultural waste. In this study, sugarcane bagasse, corn cob and pineapples core is chosen to produce activated carbon by using furnace heating processing and microwave processing.

Effects of Soil Physical Properties to the Corrosion of Underground Pipelines

Corrosion of metals in soil be able to change from comparatively fast material loss to insignificant effects, depending on soil environment. Corrosion is a process of deterioration of metal surfaces degraded into another compound. Soil is one of the medium known to have constituted to corrosion of metals. The soil creates an environment for the corrosion to react. The buried pipelines are exposed to the soil that may experience corrosion attack. The study of the soil as corrosion environment is important to mitigate the problem due to the environment and economy. There are factors that contribute to the corrosion process. This study concentrates on corrosion properties that expose to soil environment particularly underground pipelines. The mild steel coupons taken from actual pipelines, stimulating and analyzing the physic-chemical characteristics of the soil environment. The soil is sandy clay in natural. A total summed index of 2 numerical scale, thus, indicates that the soil tested was mildly to non-corrosive. The corrosion rate increase with increasing of moisture content and pH value. The observations on the coupon surface also did in order to study the morphology.

The Morphology and Mechanical Study on Neolamarckia cadamba and Endospermum diadenum in Wood Composite for Particleboard Application

This research was carried out to investigate the morphology of particleboard by using lesser-known commercial timbers (LKCT) species which are well-known in scientific name as neolamarckia cadamba (NC) and endospermum diadenum (ED). NC and ED are fast growing species available in Peninsular Malaysia. Single layer particleboard was fabricated from urea formaldehyde (UF) blended with NC and ED at different species ratio. The morphological observation on particleboard was conducted using field emission scanning electron microscopy. Particleboard boards with different resin content and species ratio. The results indicated that 7:3 of NC: ED with ratio at 12% of UF have a significant effect in term of surface morphology compared to 1:0 of NC: ED. This can be proved through mechanical and physical properties testing where NC: ED particleboard panel with 7:3 ratio exhibit the highest strength according to EN standard. NC particles can be used as a raw materials to wood-based particleboard for general purpose application.

Microstructural, Mechanical and Dielectric Properties of CCTO/Epoxy Composite

An attempt has been made to investigate the relationship between different composition of CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO)/epoxy to the microstructural, dielectric and mechanical properties respectively. CCTO powder had been produced through solid state reaction method using CaCO3, CuO and TiO2 as the raw materials. They were mixed at stoichiometric ratio and calcined at 1040°C for 10 hours. CCTO powder mixed with epoxy and hardener at different weight percentage (10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 wt%). Microstructure of fracture surface of the composite had been studied using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and mechanical characterization had been conducted using Universal Testing Machine (UTM). LCR meter Agilent 4284A was used to measure the dielectric properties at 20 Hz to 1 MHz. Increasing CCTO concentration to the composite caused a significant change of dielectric constant which arised from 17.1 to 23.5 at 1 kHz. This arising due to higher concentration of CCTO filler transfer more intrinsic values to the composite. Tensile test shows an increment to stress value from 4 to 17 MPa as the respond on increasing of ceramic filler concentration. High stiffness of CCTO have increased the strength of the composite. The dispersion of higher weight percentage of the CCTO into the epoxy is more compacted than the dispersion of lower weight percentage of CCTO. It is best to mix the higher amount of filler into the polymer matrix to increase the dielectric and strength of the composite material.

Flexural and Morphology Properties of Kenaf Fibre Reinforcement Unsaturated Polymer Composite

This study focus on the preparation of kenaf fibre reinforced unsaturated polyester composite through the compressing molding technique. The composite characterizations in flexural and morphological properties. Flexural test revealed that the incorporation of multiple layers of kenaf mat into unsaturated polymer composite (UPE) resulted in the increase of flexural strength. Nevertheless, the UPE alone still showed superior flexural strength since the presence of natural filler/fibre in polymer tends to reduce strength properties. The results proved that the UPE revealed the formation of microcracks. Thus, it has been noticed that the fiber fracture, fiber debondings and holes are some of the defects, which are observed due to the application of the load on the specimen.

Mechanical and Water Absorption Properties of Hybrid Kenaf/Glass Fibre Mat Reinforced Unsaturated Polyester Composites

Hybrid kenaf/glass fibre mat reinforced unsaturated polyester (UPE) composites have been prepared by using simple hand lay up moulding technique. The composites with various formulations were characterized by flexural test while water absorption behaviour were investigated with immersion in distilled water at room temperature. The result shows that the hybrid composites with kenaf fibre mat at the innermost layers (glass fibre mat at the outer layers) has given the highest flexural strength and modulus. On the other hand, water absorption study shows that, the hybrid composites with glass fibre mat at the innermost layers (kenaf fibre mat at the outer layers) showed the highest water uptake and thickness swelling. Further investigations on morphological properties were also done to correlate the mechanical properties of the hybrid kenaf/glass fibre mat reinforced UPE composites.

The Dielectric Properties of CaCu3Ti4O12 at Various Calcination Temperatures

High dielectric constant of CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) has drawn a great deal of intention these past years as potential material for capacitor and even micro-electronic applications. In this research, an attempt has been made to investigate the relationship between the calcination temperature and the dielectric properties of CCTO. The calcination of CCTO at lower temperature (below 1000○C) provides incomplete reaction process, where the secondary phase is detected on the sample. Calcination at 1040○C provides a single phase as just same with the control sample (sample which had gone through both phase calcine and sinter). It is also found that calcination at 1040○C provides the dielectric properties that almost the same with the calcine-sinter sample.

Characterizations of Pergau River Clay as Comparison to Mambong and Sayong

Clay as pottery’s raw material is a major factor that is affecting the quality and reliability of any pottery product. The clay source areas need to be well determined their geochemical properties in order to control the end properties of clay product. Pergau river is located in the northwest of Kelantan, a state in Malaysia. In this study, elemental and phase analysis of Pergau river clay was carried out. The baked clay products were characterized their density and toughness. X-ray fluorescence showed the clay is rich with Fe and X-ray diffraction showed low concentration of feldspar compared to other known clay source areas, which are Sayong and Mambong. Fewer feldspar content decrease toughness of the pottery product. However, some location showed the comparable result with the Sayong and Mambong. The clay is high in density, low in shrinkage percentage and excellent in mechanical strength compare to other clays collected from Pergau River.

Mechanical and Morphological Properties of Meranti Wood Flour Filled Polypropylene Composites

Wood plastic composites (WPC) have been produced by compounding meranti wood flour (WF) with polypropylene (PP) copolymer using a twin-screw extruder. The meranti WF content was varied from 30 to 60 wt.%. The mechanical properties, i.e. tensile, flexural and impact of the composites were determined on injection-molded specimens. The tensile fractured surfaces were used to study the morphological properties of the composites. The result shows that the increment in WF content has given a significant improvement in modulus properties but at the expense of strength and toughness properties. A commercial maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (MAPP) compatibilizer at 5 wt.% was incorporated into the PP40/WF60 formulation. The strength, stiffness and toughness properties were improved significantly in the presence of MAPP. The morphology of the composites was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The improvement of the fibre-matrix adhesion between the WF and PP matrix as revealed by SEM is believed to be one of the major reasons for the improved mechanical properties.

Effect of Urea Formaldehyde Addition to the Dimensional Stability of Particle Board Made Using Glutardialdehyde Modified Corn Starch as Binder with FT-IR Analysis

The objective of the study was to evaluate the dimensional stability of experimental particle board panels made from rubberwood (Hevea brasiliensis) using modified starch as binder. Panels were manufactured using 15% corn starch modified with glutardialdehyde and 13% modified starch with 2% Urea Formaldehyde resin as improvement. The particle boards were tested for their dimensional stability towards moisture. Results found that the 2% replacement of modified starch with urea formaldehyde resin showed increment in dimensional stability compared to using glutardialdehyde modified corn starch only as the binder, recorded at 39.38 % and 23.47 % for particleboard with 0.80 g/cm3 density after exposed to 75% and 95 % relative humidity. Therefore, this study indicated that combination of modified corn starch and urea formaldehyde resin can have a potential to be used as an improved binder to produce particle board panels with accepted properties.The objective of the study was to evaluate the dimensional stability of experimental particle board panels made from rubberwood (Hevea brasiliensis) using modified starch as binder. Panels were manufactured using 15% corn starch modified with glutardialdehyde and 13% modified starch with 2% Urea Formaldehyde resin as improvement. The particle boards were tested for their dimensional stability towards moisture. Results found that the 2% replacement of modified starch with urea formaldehyde resin showed increment in dimensional stability compared to using glutardialdehyde modified corn starch only as the binder, recorded at 39.38 % and 23.47 % for particleboard with 0.80 g/cm3 density after exposed to 75% and 95 % relative humidity. Therefore, this study indicated that combination of modified corn starch and urea formaldehyde resin can have a potential to be used as an improved binder to produce particle board panels with accepted properties.