Muhammad Roil Bilad

Assessment of nylon 6, 6 nanofibre membrane for microalgae harvesting

Pressure driven membrane processes have been proven suitable for the separation of microorganisms in many of biotechnical applications. In this paper, we report the preparation and characterization of a novel nylon 6, 6 nanofibers membranes and applied it for filtration of Chlorella vulgaris broth. Its performance is compared with a phase inverted polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane, an established membrane material for this application. The tests on the filterability of both membranes and their harvesting efficiency were conducted. Results show that nanofiber membrane is more hydrophilic (contact angle of zero), and has 45% higher surface pore size and 20% surface pore population that contribute significantly into its higher clean water permeability (of 1018 and 493 l/m2hbar for nanofiber and PVDF membranes respectively). Filterability results show that nanofiber membrane has superior advantages over the phase inverted one: 2-5 times higher in productivity while maintaining similar rejection of 92%. ...

Process simulation and economic analysis of biodiesel production from waste cooking oil with membrane bioreactor

Pollution and shortage of clean energy supply are among major problems that are caused by rapid population growth. Due to this growth, waste cooking oil is one of the pollution sources. On the other hand, biodiesel appears to be one of the most promising and feasible energy sources as it emits less toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases than petroleum diesel. Thus, biodiesel production using waste cooking oil offers a two-in-one solution to cater pollution and energy issues. However, the conventional biodiesel production process using homogeneous base catalyst and stirred tank reactor is unable to produce high purity of biodiesel from waste cooking oil. It is due its sensitivity to free fatty acid (FFA) content in waste cooking oil and purification difficulties. Therefore, biodiesel production using heterogeneous acid catalyst in membrane reactor is suggested. The product of this process is fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) or biodiesel with glycerol as by-product. This project is aimed to study techno-econo...

Biogas production from chicken food waste and cow manure via multi-stages anaerobic digestion

Biogas is a clean and renewable form of energy that can be produced from organic waste via anaerobic digestion using a bio-digester. Fixed dome, floating drum and plug flow digester is few of typical digester design that has been used around the world. The sizes of these reactors varies depending on the organic loading rate of the available organic waste as well as the retention time of the substrate inside the reactor. In most cases, bio-digester requires large area, constant agitation and very stable environment. Despite its numerous advantages, the potential of biogas technology depends on many factors including feedstock type, reactor design and operation parameters. Even though many studies have been done to understand the effect of these factors, there are not many study that focus on the design of the reactor to optimize the potential of biogas production from food waste. In this study, the use of multi stage reactor that requires smaller footprint will be tested to enhance the gas production rate from solid substrates (food waste and other organic materials). The study includes experiment to study the effect of stages inside the reactor, composition of substrate and size of food waste on the biogas production. The results show that the stages do have effect on the gas production. With the present of stages inside the reactor, the gas production can be increased up to 30 %. In addition, the amount of protein increases gas production. However, if the protein hydrolysis rate is high, it can disturb the process since the methanogenesis favour neutral pH.Biogas is a clean and renewable form of energy that can be produced from organic waste via anaerobic digestion using a bio-digester. Fixed dome, floating drum and plug flow digester is few of typical digester design that has been used around the world. The sizes of these reactors varies depending on the organic loading rate of the available organic waste as well as the retention time of the substrate inside the reactor. In most cases, bio-digester requires large area, constant agitation and very stable environment. Despite its numerous advantages, the potential of biogas technology depends on many factors including feedstock type, reactor design and operation parameters. Even though many studies have been done to understand the effect of these factors, there are not many study that focus on the design of the reactor to optimize the potential of biogas production from food waste. In this study, the use of multi stage reactor that requires smaller footprint will be tested to enhance the gas production rate ...

Two-way switch: Maximizing productivity of tilted panel in membrane bioreactor

Membrane fouling is a major challenge in membrane bioreactors (MBRs) and its effective handling is the key to improve their competitiveness. Tilting panel system offers significant improvements for fouling control but is strictly limited to one-sided panel. In this study, we assess a two-way switch tilting panel system that enables two-sided membranes and project its implications on performance and energy footprint. Results show that tilting a panel improves permeance by up to 20% to reach a plateau flux thanks to better contacts between air bubbles and the membrane surface to scour-off the foulant. A plateau permeance could be achieved at aeration rate of as low as 0.90 l min-1, a condition untenable by vertical panel even at twice of the aeration rate. Switching at short periods (<5min) can maintain the hydraulic performance as in no-switch (static system), enables application of a two-sided switching panel. A comparison of vertical panel under 1.80 l min-1 aeration rate with a switching panel at a half of the rate, switched at 1 min period shows ≈10% higher permeance of the later. Since periodic switching consumes a very low energy (0.55% of the total of 0.276 kWh m-3), with reduction of aeration by 50%, the switching tilted panel offers 41% more energy efficient than a referenced full-scale MBR (0.390 kWh m-3). Overall results are very compelling and highly attractive for significant improvements of MBR technologies.

Anaerobic membrane bioreactors for biohydrogen production: Recent developments, challenges and perspectives

Biohydrogen as one of the most appealing energy vector for the future represents attractive avenue in alternative energy research. Recently, variety of biohydrogen production pathways has been suggested to improve the key features of the process. Nevertheless, researches are still needed to overcome remaining barriers to practical applications such as low yields and production rates. Considering practicality aspects, this review emphasized on anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) for biological hydrogen production. Recent advances and emerging issues associated with biohydrogen generation in AnMBR technology are critically discussed. Several techniques are highlighted that are aimed at overcoming these barriers. Moreover, environmental and economical potentials along with future research perspectives are addressed to drive biohydrogen technology towards practicality and economical-feasibility.