Norazli Othman

Anaerobic Digestion of Paper Mill Wastewater

In general, paper mill wastewater contains complex organic substances which could not be treated completely using conventional treatment processes, e.g. aerobic processes. As a result, anaerobic technology is a promising alternative for paper mill wastewater treatment due to its ability to degrade hard organic compounds. In the present study, treatment of paper mill wastewater using a stage anaerobic reactor was investigated. The more specific objectives of this study were to confirm whether paper mill wastewater can be tolerated by methanogenic sludge and to assess the stability of reactor for measured parameters (e.g. COD removal, and methane composition). Results showed up to 98% COD removal efficiency in the anaerobic reactor when the reactor was operated at an OLR of 1.560 kg COD/m 3 .d. Anaerobic digestion can provide high treatment efficiency for recalcitrant substrates, which generates robust microorganism (acidogenesis and methanogenesis), for the degradation of recalcitrant compounds such as in the paper mill wastewater.

Electronic plastic waste management in malaysia: the potential of waste to energy conversion

The production of electronic products is one of the worlds fasting growing industries today. Due to this phenomena, the amount of electronic waste generated increases proportionately with the production. The growing numbers of uses of plastic products in this sector contribute to electronic plastic waste generated. From the management of solid waste aspect, the production of electronic plastic waste has to be handled effectively. Generally, there are three options for electronic plastic waste recycling which is chemical, mechanical or thermal recycling. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the research conducted on electronic plastic waste which consisted of various types of resin to determine the electronic plastic wastes potential as a source of energy. The physical and chemical characteristics of the electronic plastic waste are determined by the proximate analysis, ultimate analysis and the heavy metal content analysis of the plastic waste resin sample. The dulong formula was applied to calculate the heating value of electronic plastic waste based on the data obtained from the ultimate analysis. The result shows that the average heat value for an electronic waste is 30, 872.42 kj/kg or 7, 375 kcal/kg. The emmission factor analysis shows the concentration of air emission value which would probably be formed due to incineration activitiy is less than the effluent parameter of standard A and standard B limits fixed by the environmental quality act (clean air) 1978 for control air pollution. Basically, this research has succeeded in proving the potential of electronic plastic waste to be used as a source of energy in the future.