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Brackets is the ancient Chinese wooden building unique ways and one of the main features of the structure. Its dual function of both structural and architectural: An important component of both the structure itself, because of its flexible features tenon, the dynamic response of the structure can absorb greater energy, play a good role in the earthquake; But it is also a special architectural ornament, can play the effect of beautifying buildings. Therefore, this paper based on the finite element software ABAQUS brackets by the force of the mechanism of failure modes and numerical simulation analysis for the brackets and the whole structure of the wood to provide a scientific assessment and reinforcement.

Composites with the chopped segments of lower part of rice straw (LRSS) as main constituent, poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) as adhesive constituent and waste paper (WP) as enhancing constituent were prepared by hot-pressing method. WP showed good enhancing role and certain toughening effect. WP made tensile strength increase by 86% and strength at tensile break by 69%; when composites were prepared at 40% PVA content, 140°C for 10 min. The tensile stretch and stretch at maximum tensile force of WP enhanced composite were respectively 16.5% and 14.3%, while those were respectively 12.3% and 11.9% without WP. The tensile strength of the composites increased with increasing PVA content. From 20% PVA content to 50% PVA content, tensile strength increased by 42.8%. When PVA content was 50%, the composite reached its maximum strength of 8.71 MPa. The hardness of composites lay between 91 and 97.

This paper discusses the utilization situation and existing problems of sugarcane bagasse, and briefly the research progress of preparation of activated carbon from sugarcane bagasse (ACSB). It reviews the application of activated carbon prepared from sugarcane bagasse, such as, industrial wastewater decolorizing, removal of organic pollutants and heavy metals in wastewater in the domestic and overseas in recent years. Points out the shortage of preparation methods, the existing problems and puts forwards some questions need to be solved in future research. Moreover, the prospect of application and the trends in future research of activated carbon from sugarcane bagasse are proposed.

This paper deals with the advanced oxidation using Electro-fenton reagent for the degradation of azo-dyes in textile effluents. Discharge of textile effluents causes inevitable pollution of water resources which calls for further treatment methods. In this experiment, textile effluent samples were treated with iron electrodes with the reagents, hydrogen peroxide and ferrous sulfate .The acid dye effluents which were used in this study are Acid Orange 7, Acid Red 88, and Acid Violet 7. The temperature was set to 40° C. Samples of 20 ml were analyzed for Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Colour reduction. Experiments were carried out at voltage variations of 2, 4, 6 and 8 volts. From the results, COD and Colour were observed to be reduced drastically from respective original values before treatment with Fenton’s reagent using electro-chemical method.Keywords--- Advanced oxidation, Electro-fenton, BOD, COD, Colour reduction

Sewage sludge is difficult to degrade in anaerobic digestion systems and pretreatments have been shown to speed up the hydrolysis stage. In this paper sludge anaerobic digestion experiments with peracetic acid as a pretreatment were carried out and the effects of acid pretreatment using peracetic acid on subsequent digestion were investigated. It has been proved that this treatment effectively leads to a solubilisation of organic material and thus leads to a increase of soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) and volatile fatty acids (VFA) concentration. Besides, the SV of sludge was reduced and the settling characteristics of sludge were improved. But high dosage of peracetic acid lead to a decrease in biogas production and the proper dosage was 20 g/kg DS. It can be concluded that sludge anaerobic digestion with peracetic acid pretreatment is an effective method for biomass material transformation.

Most of the several billion liters of metalworking fluid (MWF) used worldwide and annually are water-based and thus prone to a microbial contamination. The microbial growth leads to a deterioration and therefore to a loss of quality and technical performance. In most cases, biocides, which pose a potential risk to health and environment, are used to reduce the microbial load. To avoid these limitations, the paradigm shift of using microorganisms in a positive way in a manufacturing process as a lubricant is investigated in this paper. Some microorganisms are able to synthesize equivalent MWF components like e.g. fatty acids or sulfur compounds. Due to this fact, it is possible to create a regenerative system on a microbiological basis for the substitution of mineral oil containing MWF components. To demonstrate the lubrication potential of bacteria, preliminary investigations were conducted on a Brugger-tribotester. Against this background, the approach presented here intends to investigate the lubrication properties of special microorganisms and the influence of the microbial cell counts on the lubrication behavior respectively. The results of the tribological tests show that the microbial-suspensions exhibit Brugger-values as high as highly concentrated conventional MWF and indicate the potential to replace these respective components.

The spiral shaft parts have been widely applied in machinery and equipment manufacturing industry, the paper based on DEFORM-3D, the rigid-plastic finite element model of cross wedge rolled spiral shaft parts was established. The rolling process was simulated, the strain laws were analyzed, and the characteristics of metal flow were explored. From which we can find Plate cross wedge rolled spiral shaft parts is completely feasible. The results provide the theoretic basis for precision deformation of cross wedge rolled spiral shaft parts.

A lignin-degrading bacterium was isolated on mineral salt medium amended by lignosulfonate (L-MSM) agar from the activated sludge of a pulp and paper mill wastewater treatment plant and identified as Sphingobacterium sp. HY-H by biochemical tests and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The maximum kraft lignin (KL) degradation capability of strain HY-H was determined to be 28.2% on a COD basis under the optimal conditions of pH 7.0, temperature 30°C, and KL to nitrogen (as NH4Cl) ratio of 2 by mass. Moreover, growth kinetic studies showed the KL tolerance of strain HY-H was relatively high and the analysis of KL degradation products by GC-MS revealed the formation of low-molecular-weight aromatic compounds (LMWACs), such as guaiacol, vanillin and vanillyl alcohol, indicating that the strain HY-H can oxidize guaiacyl (G) units and syringyl (S) units in lignin structure. In addition, some low molecular ketone compounds such as 4-hydroxy-2-butanone and methyl vinyl ketone were detected in the inoculated sample after 48h, further validating the partial but possible degradation of KL by strain HY-H.

A novel kind of environmentally friendly composite materials containing upper part of rice straw segments (URSS), poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and waste paper (WP) were prepared by hot-pressing at 140°C for 10 min. The tensile strength, tensile elongation and hardness of composites were measured. Results showed that the tensile strength and the strength at tensile break of the composites first increased and then decreased with increasing PVA content. Tensile strength was higher than the strength at tensile break at different PVA contents, indicating that URSS/PVA/WP composite materials had certain toughness. Otherwise, URSS/PVA/WP composite materials had higher tensile strength than URSS/PVA composites. The tensile strengths of them were respectively 9.25 MPa and 3.9 MPa when prepared at PVA content of 40%. The hardness of composites lay between 90 and 96. Negligible difference exists in every composite.

This research paper presents the experimental results of drying of chili by using the active solar dryer and sun drying because of chili is a commercial agricultural product of Thailand. The active solar dryer consisted of a solar collector, a drying chamber and a chimney. The small fans were installed in the solar collector of active solar dryer to provide the air flow circulated in the solar collector and a drying chamber. Drying of chili of 20 kg from moisture content 84 percent wet basis to 10 percent wet basis following the Thai Agricultural Standard (TAS 3001-2010) showed that the use of the active solar dryer to make the drying time reduced about 28.7 percent compared with sun drying because of the hot air temperature inside the drying chamber higher than the ambient temperature about 10 to 15 . The quality of dried chili from the active solar dryer better than dried chili from sun drying.

Aiming at the difficulty of treating dyeing wastewater, the limitation of the traditional electrolysis method, the high cost of active carbon and the environmental pollution of the chicken manure in farms, the paper put forward a new method of using iron combined with biological carbon derived from chicken manure forming internal electrolysis to treat dyeing wastewater. It discussed the effects of mass ratio of iron and biological carbon derived from chicken manure, pH, reaction time, the particle size of iron filings, the aeration rate, circulation velocity and the circling liquid volume on the removal rate of the organic matter in wastewater. The result showed that iron combined with biological carbon derived from chicken manure forming internal electrolysis to treat dyeing wastewater could "using waste to treat waste" and the effect was better. The removal rate of COD was over 85% and the decolorization rate was over 95% when the mass ratio of iron and biological carbon derived from chicken manure was 1:1, the PH was 6, reaction time was was 60min, the particle size of iron filings was 0.9~2.0mm, the aeration rate was 10mL/min, circulation velocity was 50r/min and the circling liquid volume was 2000mL.

The essence of the two phase anaerobic biological treatment process is to place acid bacteria and methane-producing bacteria in two reactors respectively, where it can provide the optimal conditions for their growth and metabolism, allowing them to live up to their maximal activity, which greatly improve processing capacity and efficiency compared to a single-phase anaerobic digestion. The paper start with the two phase anaerobic digestion process, in order to discuss the development direction of high efficient anaerobic digestion system.

The paper introduced a new idea of culturing Chlorella with combined reverse osmosis (RO) brine concentrate and primary effluent from sewage treatment plant as culture medium. This method was expected to reuse wastewater resource and lower the cost of Chlorella cultivation. The biomass of Chlorella at different temperature and different proportion of RO brine (0-90% by volume) were measured. Results showed that Chlorella had an ability to grow in RO brine blended with primary effluent. The biomass of Chlorella in 30% of RO brine blended was the most. At a low temperature of 10℃, the effect of RO brine on Chlorella biomass was obvious, high temperature (30℃) inhibited the growth of Chlorella, 20℃ was the most favorable temperature for growth.

The flotation is the effective method to fine coal separation, but the cost is higher and flotation reagents pollute circulating water system. In this paper, the JiuLiShan coarse coal slim was classified, the interception of 0.25 mm was collected, fine coal float-and sink test was carried out. For the-0.25mm coarse slime, compare the flotation, conventional coarse coal slime separation and new slime separator separation, the results show: underflow ash increased by 12.4%;the new slime separator is suitable for the 0.25 mm granularity fine coal slime, can be applied to lower fine slime ash, raising cleaned coal yield.

In this paper, the pyrolysis characteristics ofChlorella vulgaris(C. vulgaris) (a kind of microalgae) under different microwave power and pyrolysis atmosphere are studied by microwave oven. The results show that under N2atmosphere, a power of 1500W is required for optimal oil production, 2250W for optimal gas production and 750W for optimal residue. Under CO2atmosphere, a power of 2250W is required for maximum oil production, 1500W for maximum gas production and 750W for maximum residue.

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Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (OPEFB) contributes more than 50% of oil palm biomass wastes in Malaysia. This provides tremendous opportunities for value-added product generation from recycling and utilizing its latent capacity. In this work, the performance of physically-pretreated OPEFB fibers without any chemical treatment for Pb2+ removal from aqueous system was evaluated. Three different size ranges (1-5 cm, 0.5-2 mm and 0.005-0.02 mm) of raw sorbent, pH (4-10) and contact time (2-150 min) for Pb2+ batch adsorption were tested. The kinetic data were evaluated by the pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intra-particle diffusion model. The experimental data were well described by the pseudo-second-order model with r2=0.997. Adsorption efficiency was size-dependent with about 38% sorption increase at 0.005-0.02 mm, and reached 94% efficiency, achieved 47.49 mg/g capacity with 500 ppm Pb2+ at pH 7.5, in 60 min. The eco-friendly, low cost sorbent can be applied as green, effective adsorbent in waste water remediation.

The effect of heat on the quality of spray dried Tongkat Ali extract was investigated at three different air inlet temperatures (100°C, 180°C and 2200C). Response surface methodology employing the Box-Behnken Design was employed to hunt for the optimum operating conditions at these temperatures. Good retentions of eurycomanone, total polysaccharides and glycosaponins were exhibited during the spray drying process. However, protein was found to be susceptible to thermal degradation during the spray drying process. Use of high air inlet temperatures (i.e. 1800C and 2200C) in spray drying led to greater process yield, lower moisture contents, produced non-sticky particles, and resulted in good powder size distribution of Tongkat Ali extract compared to spray drying at 1000C.

Oil contamination has caused more public anxiety than other waste or spilt materials into the marine environment. Oil sorbents of high sorption capacity, biodegradable, readily available and low cost, are important for protection of water environment, especially from oil spillage. This work deals with raw and modified corn silk, an agricultural waste, as a low cost sorbent for oil-products spill cleanup in the aquatic environment. Corn silk was modified using fatty acid (oleic acid) to improve its sorption capacity. The chemical functional groups of raw and modified corn silk were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Kinetic tests were conducted with a series of contact times. The kinetic studies showed good correlation coefficients for a pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The oleic acid treated corn silk (OTCS) showed high degree of hydrophobicity and oil sorption capacity of approximately 10.7 and 11.90 g oil/g sorbent for Tapis and Arabian crude oil, respectively. Corn silk is a cheap waste material that can be treated to have an acceptable sorption capacity which can be used as an alternative to the commercial synthetic sorbents such as polypropylene.

Wastewater originated from domestic or industry use need to be treated before discharge it to the environment. Particle size is one of the parameter that determine efficient operation of wastewater treatment plant. The present work conducts a comparative study of non-imaging and imaging based particle size analysis tools to analyze the limitations and advantages of using such equipment. The study utilizes particle size analyzer (PSA) as non-imaging tool and light microscope as imaging tool to determine particle sizes in various waste water samples. For this analysis domestic wastewater influent and effluent are analyzed with both techniques. In addition, palm oil mill effluent (POME) has also been analyzed after Fenton process to compare the particle size using these tools. PSA shows most of the particles in the influent and effluent are in the size range of 100 to 700 μm, while microscopy shows additional information of aggregates structure in POME sample showing promising possibility of identifying complex structure of aggregates present in the sample.

Denim is one important clothing product recently in the market. However, the original solid blue colour is not attractive to the consumers and hence many manufacturers are trying to remove part of the blue colour from the denim fabric surface. This fading effect could impart fade-look or worn out effect in the final products which made it becomes popular to the consumers. There are different methods to achieve the colour fading effect in which enzyme washing is one of the simplest methods to be used in the industry. Although the enzyme washing is a good method for colour fading of denim, the process involves the use of chemical as well as temperature which may introduce certain degree of damage in denim fabric. Thus, this paper will investigate the effect of enzyme washing on the tensile property of denim fabric under different treatment duration.

Smartphone has become the necessities of people in the world today. The worlds biggest Smartphone market is china. For Chinese mobile phone manufacturers, if they wanted to share on the global mobile phone market and gain more competitiveness, they would not only in cost and price to win,but also analyze consumer trends and consumer preferences about the smart phone configuration. China mobile is the country's biggest mobile operator and mobile phone distributor company, which has a large amount of smart phone sales data. This paper based on the smart phone sales data, proposed comprehensive clustering method and realized analysis of mobile phone configuration, including DBSCAN algorithm and K-means algorithm. Which cluster and divide the smart phone configuration into the different groups objectively and scientifically. Finally, the simulation analysis of smart phone sales data from china mobile, it is concluded that the accurate clustering results would help enterprises to make better decisions and predictions. Keywords: Smart phone configuration, Comprehensive clustering, DBSCAN algorithm, K-means algorithm

When straw pulp papermaking wastewater was treated by the process of coagu-flocculation and nuclear-flocculation, there were still high CODCr. UV254 can reflect organic pollutants and organic pollutants of unsaturated aromatic ring, carbon-carbon double bond. With the decrease of molecular weight of organic pollutants, absorption of ultraviolet light will decrease. Indirectly, it reflectd that the combination process had a good removal effect on high molecular aromatic hydrocarbons difficult to be biodegraded. Meanwhile it can improve the the biodegradability. It used the activated sludge process as subsequent process of coagulation and-flocculation process. The test results showed that the removal rate of CODCr was 24.1%, CODCr was the 88.1mg/L. It reached effluent standard.

The dyeing effects of atmospheric pressure impregnation method on thick Birch and Elm veneer under bleached and unbleached treatment were discussed in this paper, as well as the color changes and influencing factors analyzed by CIE(1976)L*a*b*color system. The results showed that it was feasible to dye the thick Birch veneer using red acid GR under unbleached treatment and both the color saturation and gloss met the requirements while disperse dyes were not suitable for the thick veneer because of the general results, poor penetration, and low uptake rate. The dyeing effect on Elm was not satisfactory so that it was not recommended as dyeing wood while its better material quality made it better for furniture.

The aim of this work is to enhance dyeing efficiency and fastness properties of natural dyes from Dirinaria picta lichen species using ultrasound method. The dyes were extracted using boiling water, ammonia fermentation and solvent extraction methods. The time and temperature of ultrasound dyeing on silk fabrics were varied and compared with conventional dyeing. The results revealed that the efficiency of ultrasound dyeing is better than conventional dyeing in terms of giving darker shades on the fabrics. Ultrasound dyeing has the advantage of using lower dyeing temperature. The results of fastness properties to washing, perspiration, crocking and light were fair to good.

The construction industry is responsible for high energy and raw materials consumption. Thus, it is important to minimize the high energy consumption by taking advantage of renewable energy sources and reusing industrial waste, decreasing the extraction of natural materials. The mortars with incorporation of phase change materials (PCM) have the ability to regulate the temperature inside buildings, contributing to the thermal comfort and reduction of the use of heating and cooling equipment, using only the energy supplied by the sun. The simultaneous incorporation of PCM and fly ash (FA) can reduce the energetic consumption and the amount of materials landfilled. However, the addition of these materials in mortars modifies its characteristics. The main purpose of this study was the production and characterization in the fresh and hardened state of mortars with incorporation of different contents of PCM and FA. The binders studied were aerial lime, hydraulic lime, gypsum and cement. The proportion of PCM studied was 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% of the mass of the sand. The content of fly ash added to the mortars was 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% of the mass of the binder. It was possible to observe that the incorporation of PCM and fly ash in mortars caused differences in properties such as workability, microstructure, water absorption, compressive strength, flexural strength and adhesion.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the ability ofMicrobacterium liquefaciensstrain MNSH2-PHGII-2, isolated from a Mexican silver mine, for removing Ni and V from spent catalyst at 80% (w/v) pulp density in a glass-column system at laboratory conditions. Firstly, microbial culture was adapted to spent catalyst at 0.1% (w/v) in liquid culture then, it was assayed by its ability to remove Ni and V from a spent catalyst in a glass-column system. Spent catalyst was packed at 80% (w/v) pulp density and inoculated at 20% (3x108CFU/ml); air was supplied at 80 ml/min and then incubated at 30°C during 14 days. Parameters such as microbial growth, pH, Ni and V residual concentrations, in catalyst, were determined at days 7 and 14. The result showed thatMicrobacterium liquefaciensstrain MNSH2-PHGII-2 in the glass-column system was able to remove 1007.4 mg/kg of Ni while V was removed at an extent of 5360.5 mg/kg. Microbial removal for other metals in catalyst was non-significant, that indicated the specificity ofMicrobacterium liquefaciensto remove Ni and V.

Ashes from lignite combustion for power generation contain strategic metals, metalloids and rare earth elements and may thus be a potential source of industrially demanded metals. The presented project focuses on the assessment and exploitation of this potential raw material. Lignite ash assessment showed that largest ash amounts for potential exploitation are available in the Lusatia district, Saxony. Mechanical ash pre-treatment in principle provided enriched fractions by different methods but still suffered from low yields of enriched fractions. Thermal ash processing showed multiple significant phase changes compared to original ash. Subsequent chemical leaching using HClaq resulted in high metal extraction. Alternatively, bioleaching was applied using acidophilic Fe (II) and S-oxidizing or Fe (III)-reducing microorganisms (MO) as well as heterotrophic MO. The results indicated likewise high and partly specific metal mobilizations. Industrial ash exploitation was accomplished by direct reaction with acids resulting in Al-Fe-solutions which potentially can be applied in water treatment.

This study focuses on the biodesulfurization of lignite specifically the reduction of organic sulfur, namely aliphatic mercaptans/thiolsviabioprocess methods. The process was conducted by using multistage artificial biotreatment (A-Bmt) andPseudoclavibactersp.SKC/XLW-1 strains as biocatalysts. The aims are to improve the recovery of clean coal by reducing the organic sulfur both in nodules and globular forms on the maceral surface during the stage of coal biooxidation prior to column bioflotation stage, in which it is still possible to achieve higher recovery of fine coal grains without sulphide mineral. The results shows that the A-Bmt method carried out through biooxidation stage followed by column bioflotation stage has better performance compared to the method without biooxidation stage. The results of this study show that the content of organic sulfur are lower by 25%.

Peru is mining country with a great diversity of mineral resource. The high grade ores are declining, and there is a need to implement new techniques for recycling metals (Cu, Au, Zn, Pb, etc) from low-grade ores. In order to answer this question, the bioleaching of copper from sulphide ore (FeS2 45.30%, CuFeS2 1.90%, ZnS 8.90%, FeAsS 13.12%, PbS 3.69%) was evaluated with different concentrations of Fe2+ using an iron-oxidizing native microbial consortium.The samples were collected from drainage acid mine (4100 m.a.s.l.) located in the south of Huancavelica region and the sample of ore from middle Huaraz region (3200 m.a.s.l.). Microorganisms were isolated in 9k medium at pH 1.8, 22oC. Bioleaching test were performed in two consecutive steps to 150 rpm at 22oC, monitoring pH, ORP (mV). Assays varying the concentration of Fe2+ (0 mM – 53 mM) were performed with a pulp density of 1% and 2% at each step, and with an inoculum 10% (v/v) to a microbial concentration of 108 cel/mL.We isolated a microbial consortium after 8 weeks with presence of bacteria Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans-like. In assays, copper was solubilized. The microbial concentration in the tests was (2x107- 4x107cel/mL). In the first stage, the test with 21 mM Fe2+ recovered 62% copper. In the next step, with the bacterial concentration of the first step, bioleaching time is reduced by 22% for copper recovery (63%) in absence of Fe2+.With these data, we observed that the addition of iron is not necessary in a stage adaptation when the mineral contain iron.

Groundwater contamination due to mining, industrial and agricultural activities is a source of concern, especially with the advent of more stringent environmental legislation. Water sources in South Africa are multi-functional as the same water used in industrial processes is also used in agriculture.[1] Mining activities in the Northern Cape of South Africa, is largely as a result of manganese mining where Mn (II) and Fe (II) is removed. The treatment of the effluent discharged to the environment is therefore seen as a priority.Biosorption has proven to be a viable alternative to the use of conventional heavy metal removal methods. [2, 3] The re-usability of the biomaterial was investigated using a batch system. The biomaterial was contacted with Mn (II) sulfate, after which the supernatant was analysed for metal content. The biosorbent was then dried and desorbed using HCl. This process was repeated 3 times to investigate whether the biomaterial deteriorated and whether the biosorption process was affected by multiple use of the same biomaterial. The results showed that the biosorption capacity reduced with each successive use of the biomaterial.

For petroleum industries, CO2 can cause corrosion, and heating-value reduction. However, CO2 can be used to enhance the oil recovery for oil production. However, the amount of CO2 supply is not enough because the cost of carbon capture is high. The main sources of CO2 come from power generation. The technology to capture CO2 is carbon capture and storage or CCS. Currently, the effective technology to remove CO2 from the power plants is chemical absorption and chemicals used in this technology play a key role. Nowadays, the commercially used solvents are monoethanolamine (MEA). Nevertheless, it also has disadvantages such as low capacity and high energy requirement for regeneration thus making CCS costly. Therefore, many new solvents such as 2-(methylamino) ethanol or 2-MAE have been developed to improve efficiency and to reduce the cost of CO2 capture. Therefore, the objective of this work is to measure the solubility data of CO2 in a 5M aqueous solution of 2-MAE as a promising solvent at the temperature from 30 °C to 80 °C and CO2 partial pressures ranging from 5 to 100 kPa. The solubility results of CO2 in 2-MAE solution are compared with those of aqueous solution of MEA. In term of cyclic capacities, the results show that 2-MAE provides higher performance which is up to 86.8% and 150.9% higher than that of MEA at 15 and 100 kPa, respectively. Furthermore, the results present that the CO2 loading can increase as partial pressure increases and decrease at higher temperature. It can be concluded that an increase in cyclic capacity leads to the decrease in energy requirement for solution regeneration and liquid-circulation rate, leading to the reduction of the overall capital and operating costs and resulting in the decrease in cost of carbon capture.

The biopolymer material, lignin, was recovered from the black liquor by acidification of the black liquor using sulfuric acid. Several purification techniques were carried out to produce the high purity of lignin such as gradual precipitation of lignin from black liquor (first stage: precipitation at pH 7, second stage: precipitation at pH 2) and the diluting of crude lignin by sodium hydroxide then followed by re-precipitation at different temperature. Subsequently, the impurities of lignin product resulted from each purification techniques was determined as ash content that analyzed using temperature program furnace; and the content of lignin was investigated using spectrophotometer UV-Vis. The result showed that the content of lignin of material produced from gradual precipitation was approximately 77.6%. It was higher than the content of lignin about 3.4% of material produced from direct precipitation to pH 2. In addition, the elevating of temperature from 40 to 60°C was no considerably affect to the content of lignin in precipitate produced from re-precipitation of crude lignin solution in sodium hydroxide. Nonetheless, the content of lignin of precipitate improved 15% when the temperature of re-precipitation of crude lignin solution in sodium hydroxide was raised from room temperature to 40-60°C.

The application of photodegradable polyethylene is increasingly important for agricultural uses due to its ability to degrade after suggested shelf life and to counter measure pollution issue caused by conventional polyethylene films. The photodegradable polyethylene (PE) mixtures were formulated with added polypropylene (PP) and photodegradant (RM master batch) and tested in oil palm seedlings cultivation. PP is known to have photodegradable ability and RM master batch is proven to induce photo degradation of polyethylene. Thus, the mixture of these three components according to different ratios was processed into agricultural plastic films. There are four formulations that are tested in this study, namely T1 (80% PE:20% PP:5% RM master batch), T2 (70% PE:30% PP:5% RM master batch), T3 (80% PE:20% PP:3% RM master batch) and T4 (70% PE:30% PP:3% RM master batch). All formulations except control sample were added with photodegradant to impart degradation reaction and compatibiliser was also affixed to allow coalesce between polyethylene and polypropylene. Carbon black was added 0.5% into the formulation as for poly bags application, dark environment of soil is crucial for root development and growth. Penetration of sun light into the planting soil could commence development of shoot instead of root growth. All four formulations showed observable morphological changes on microscopic images on the surfaces after being used in oil palm nursery. From the study, it is shown that T1 and T3, with 20% of additional polypropylene had demonstrated clear surface disintegration when viewed microscopically. The addition of 3% and 5% of photodegradant into the formulations did not show any expressive difference thus suggesting that 3% of photodegradant is the optimum amount to induce photo degradation.

The objective of this study is to investigate the ability of Elaeis guineensis fruit fiber or known as oil palm mesocarp fiber (OPMF) to adsorb nickel from aqueous solution. As one of the major oil palm producer, Malaysia has abundantly oil palm waste that potentially be used as biosorbent. Limited studies used OPMF as biosorbent to remove nickel, thus it was used in this study. The effects of pH, initial metal concentration and contact time on nickel uptake were studied. The OPMF was soaked in nickel nitrate aqueous solution and the Ni-loaded OPMF being digested to analyse the nickel concentration by using ICP-OES. The adsorption was investigated in the pH range of 2.0-8.0 and the optimum pH for nickel removal was found to be 7.0. The contact time was varied between 5 to 120 mins and the nickel adsorption was found to achieve equilibrium in a very short time (i.e. R2 of 0.98. The kinetic studies showed that the pseudo-second order model is the best model with the correlation coefficients of > 0.99 for all concentrations. Overall, the adsorption of nickel by OPMF gave positive results and the used of OPMF as biosorbent has great potential to be applied in the future.

In this study, d-limonene as green solvent was used as an alternative to n-hexane to recover the residual crude palm oil (RCPO) from the OPDC. The OPDC obtained from the palm oil mill contained about 12.55±3.15% (dry basis) of RCPO. Similar as n-hexane, the results proved that d-limonene as solvent was able to recover 100% of the RCPO from the OPDC successfully. The recyclable of d-limonene was 90%, higher than n-hexane (70%) and not much variation on fatty acids composition of extracted RCPO were observed. To ensure complete RCPO recovery, microscopic observation and FTIR spectra analysis on OPDC before and after the extraction were performed. This study concludes that d-limonene is comparable to n-hexane. However, the residual oil is classified as non-edible as it is not extracted via mechanical method. Therefore, further analysis is necessary in order to determine the potential use of the residual oils in other industries such as pharmaceutical, food packaging, fiberboard manufacturing and others.

PBO (p-phenylene benzobisoxazole) short fibers, attached fine fibrils that are called PBO pulp, may precipitate directly from stirred PBO/methanesulfonic acid (MSA) solution by the use of water coagulant in fibrous pulp form. Scanning electron micrographs show that the precipitated PBO pulps have a ribbon-like structure similar to Kevlar pulps. The thermalgravimetric analysis (TGA) show there were no appreciable mass changes until 550 °C in the air. The process yields PBO pulps with different specific surface areas (SSA) depending on the stirring speed, stirring time and the concentration of the PBO/MSA solution. High SSA PBO pulps can be produced by increasing the stirring speed, prolonging the stirring time and reducing the concentration of the PBO/MSA solution.

The microalgae Chlorella sp. grows well in POME medium sparged with a mixture of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas and air under 10,000 lx of lighting. The percentage of CO2 in the mixture, and the flow rate of the mixture (representing agitation) have important effects on the microalgae biomass yield. However, the percentage recovery of CO2 as microalgae biomass was very low in all cases, indicating that most of the sparged CO2 did not dissolve in the POME and was not sequestered by the microalgae but has in fact escaped with the bubbles into the head-space and out into the atmosphere. This result indicates that in order to increase the percentage of CO2 recovered, the area of improvement is mainly in the mass transfer of CO2 from the gas phase into the liquid phase. To ensure that dissolved CO2 does not re-form bubbles, the mass transfer has to be demand-driven, where the rate of uptake of dissolved CO2 by the microalgae has to be higher than the rate of mass transfer of CO2 from gas phase into the liquid medium.

Graphene oxide (GO) reduction is a promising way for graphene large scale synthesis. Pre-exfoliated graphite was oxidized and reduced. The material was compared to commercial graphene oxide and its reduced sample. The reduction process of graphene oxide is accomplished using sodium borohydride (NaBH4) with variable-valence metal ion – cobalt – assistance. The reduced graphene oxide (RGO) was characterized by Raman spectroscopy. The particle size and suspension stability were determined. Electrical conductivity measurements of GO and RGO samples have been done in temperature range from-150°C to 85°C. Pre-exfoliation effect was determined.

A reduced graphene oxide/nickel (rGO/Ni) composite has been succesfully synthesized using a combination of Marcano’s method for synthesizing graphene oxide (GO), subsequently followed by a facile microwave assisted reduction method. X-ray diffraction results show the presence of graphene and nickel on the prepared samples. In addition, the Fourier Tansform Infrared Spectroscopy measurement showed that the absorption peaks of O-H, C=O, C-OH, and C-O only appear in the GO sample. A Scanning Electron Microscope photograph shows that the morphology of the rGO samples contain nano-layered forms. A Raman spectroscopy characterization of the prepared rGO samples show a peak of G band’s wave number at 1586.5 cm-1. From the calculation of the G band’s wave number, the average number of graphene layers is 1.15.

In this study, three different concentration of organic loading rate (OLR) were investigated to examine the effect of the change in the organic loading rate on the efficiency of the biogas production. Daily amount of biogas of different type of organic loading rate (OLR), rates of production of biogas, removal efficiencies of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total solid (TS) matter, volatile solids (VS) matter from the slurry were investigated in 30 days retention tyme using 50 L digester. The digester was operated at different organic feeding rates of 25000 mg/L COD, 50000 mg/L COD, and 75000 mg/L COD. The material used in this system is the fruits waste, vegetables waste and cow dung. The system operated in continuous system. The reactor showed stable performance with the highest quality of methane (concentration about70.3% of CH4) and rate of biogas production is 38.1 L/day with COD reduction of 52.1% during organic loading rate 50000 mg/L COD. As the organic loading rate was increased, the COD degradation and biogas yield decreased. Based on this result, the OLR of 50000 mg/L COD is suggested as design criteria for pilot biogas production.

Multi-functional scouring agent (M.F.S.A.) successfully can replace caustic soda, soda ash, scouring agent and H2O2 –bleach stabilizer. It has strong properties of washing, dispersing, emulsifying and chelating, particularly applicable to bleach bath. In this experiment three processes like desizing, scouring and bleaching were done by single stage. Grey fabrics (woven) were treated by using various concentrations of M.F.S.A. and H2O2 at different temperature variation. The maximum value of whiteness of treated fabric were found at 80°C by using the concentration of M.F.S.A. and H2O2 (3.0 g/L and 3.0 g/L respectively). Also minimize required number of chemical used for bleaching process; here only two chemicals used for whole process. No additional chemicals used for water treatment and washing of treated fabric. After process only cold wash were done. Finally by using less concentration of both M.F.S.A. and H2O2 have got comparatively better result for whiteness and tensile strength.

This study aims to directly analyze the production of hydrogen and methane gas from POME via high frequency ultrasonication atomization. The advantage of the currently common process was studied in regards to the application of low frequency ultrasonic pretreatment prior to biological processes; anaerobic digestion and fermentation for the production of methane and hydrogen gases respectively. Existing ultrasonic application is limited to sludge disintegration, reducing chemical oxygen demand (COD) values and total solid, while subsequent biological processes take several days to produce gases. However, in this study, high frequency (2.4 MHz) ultrasonic atomization process was able to produce methane and hydrogen gases directly without any biological process. These gases were detected by using an online gas chromatography. The results from the ultrasonication process show that the production gases are consisted majorly of hydrogen compared to methane. Thus, high frequency ultrasonication process can be considered as an alternative method in rapid production of methane and hydrogen gases.

Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements in the universe and a clean carrier of energy. However, the existence of hydrogen is in different compound forms, in which a great deal of energy is required to split from the compounds. Gasification of biomass is one of the best methods to produce hydrogen. This study focuses on the production of hydrogen in gasification process by using a throated downdraft gasifier and preheated air as gasifying agent. For the study on the effect of gasifying air temperature on hydrogen concentration in the syngas an electric heater was used to preheat the inlet air up to 500°C. The results of the study showed that increasing the gasifying air temperature from 30°C to 500°C increased the volume concentration of hydrogen by 25.1% in the syngas. The increase in hydrogen was steeper when the inlet air was in the lower range temperature (30 to 265°C) as compared to that of the upper range (265 to 500°C).

Calculated carbon dioxide emission from WPT, using equations derived from the UNFCC report, found that the average amount of CO2 emitted from the decomposition of WPT annually for 2011-2032 is equivalent to 14.19 million tonnes. The amounts of CO2 that can be sequestered from the manufacture of the potential products were also calculated. Assuming 50% of the annual availability of WPT in Malaysia from year 2011-2032 is converted into products such as plywood/flooring, bio-ethanol from OPT sap, timber, animal feed and micro-crystalline cellulose, GHG emissions would be reduced by 8.11%; 1.95%; 21.35% and 20.50% respectively. The conversion of WPT into biofuel such as fuel pellets and bio-ethanol could provide more impactful effect through indirect and direct carbon offsets from the displacement of fossil fuel use. Up to 48.26 percent CO2 reduction may be achieved.

Esterification and trans-esterification reactions are an alternative solution for the production of biodiesel from Crude Palm Oil waste. The two previous studies show that the yield obtained was less than 80%. It is necessary to investigate the optimum condition of trans-esterification operation in biodiesel production from CPO waste. Variables used are temperature, time, ratio of molar triglyceride with methanol, and catalyst concentration. According to preliminary temperature treatment variations, it is determined that optimum temperature is 55°C. Meanwhile, the time treatment variations showed that optimum time is 60 minutes. For the ratio of molar triglyceride with methanol, it is determined that 1:10 is the optimum ratio. And last, for the experiment variations of NaOH concentrations it is discovered that the optimum concentration is 1.25%-b. And to conclude the research, the optimum condition for each variable was used where biodiesel’s yield can reach up to 96.67%.

A new carbon material called graphene has been attracting an increasing research interest owing to its unique electrical and mechanical properties that is useful for the various device applications. The synthesis of graphene from graphene oxide usually involves harmful chemical reducing agents that are toxic and undesirable to human and the environment. By avoiding the use of toxic and environmentally harmful reductants, we report a green approach for the reduction of graphene oxide by using reducing sugars to synthesis graphene. Graphite oxide was synthesized from graphite powder using modified Hummers method. Graphite oxide then further exfoliated to graphene oxide by using ultrasonic irradiation. Graphene then was obtained by the mild reduction of graphene oxide with reducing sugars (glucose, lactose and maltose). The structural study of the as-prepared graphene is characterized by Raman spectroscopy and fourier infra red spectroscopy. Raman and FTIR spectra indicates the partial removal of oxygen functional groups from the surface of GO. Characterizations indicate that graphene oxide is successfully reduced to graphene by sugar.

We measured the resistivity and conductivity behavior of activated carbon and an activated carbon – graphene oxide (GO – AC) hybrid using two point probe method. As graphene oxide is well known as insulator, the effects of different ratio of activated carbon on conductivity of hybrid GO – AC was investigated.

Green composites of Glucose-reduced graphene oxide (GrGO) and manganese (IV) oxide (MnO2) were prepared in a typical chemical synthesis route assisted with ultrasonic irradiation. Conductivity studies conducted via 2-point probe method shows GrGO/MnO2(4:1) possessed electrical conductivity of 30.29 S cm-1with energy band gap of 8.47×10-1eV. The increase of D/G intensity ratio of GrGO with increase MnO2loading indicates more disorder carbon or defects are introduced from the reaction of carbon with MnO4-.

Today, research on graphene and other two-dimensional sp2-hybridized carbon nanomaterials has tremendously impacted the areas of modern chemistry, physics, and materials science and engineering. The significant attraction of these materials can be attributed to the outstanding electrical, optical, electrochemical, and mechanical properties of graphene-like materials, especially in comparison to other carbon materials. In this manner, graphene oxide as a substrate for graphene-like materials reduction process is getting more and more interesting. Although early routes to these materials were challenging, significant advances in synthetic and processing methods have enabled access to high-quality exfoliated graphene oxide sheets in appreciable quantities. Herein, we introduced a simple and efficient method for the high-conversion preparation of graphene oxide using a simplified hummer’s method from large graphite flakes (an average flake size of 100 μm). One-pot chemical oxidation of graphite was carried out at room temperature for the preparation purpose. It was found that different degree of oxidation of graphite flakes could be realized by stirring graphite in a mixture of sulphuric acid and potassium permanganate under different oxidation durations, resulting in exfoliated graphene oxide sheets with large lateral dimension and area. The simplified Hummer’s method provides a facile approach for the preparation of large-area exfoliated graphene oxide sheets.