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The agriculture waste material can give benefit to many production industries. The studied crop is corn (Zea Mays)stalk. The objective of this work was to analysis the chemical composition; to study chemical pulping and papermaking properties of corn stalk and; to investigate the fiber morphology of properties of those crops. Firstly, the chemical composition of corn stalk were determined and compared with other non-woods. After that, chemical corn stalk was conducted in this analysis followed the physical and mechanical properties. The result showed that, corn stalk have cellulose (39.0%) and lignin content is the lowest (7.3%) content rather than other composition. In chemical pulping, reached high pulp yields had been produced and the strength properties: tear index, tensile index, burst and fold verified that they were of an acceptable quality for papermaking. This crop morphology was observed by Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM), which showed a condensed composition of fiber structure. This study can developed a friendly product and promote the green technology, suitable to be used as an alternative pulp in paper making industry.Keywords:Fiber, Corn stalk, Composition, Green technology, Pulp and paper making.

The aim of this study was to study the morphology and structural characteristic of NCC hydrolyzed from filter paper. The NCCs were extracted by acid hydrolysis at 50°C for 1 hour, using 55% conc. H2SO4 under vigorous mechanical stirring, centrifugation at 12000 rpm in distillate water and followed by homogenizing at 7000 rpm. The morphology and surface profiles of the NCC suspension was characterized using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The crystalline structure of the NCC was evaluated by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. As a result, hydrolysed NCC was found to have a rod liked shape with diameter in the range of 100-300nm length and 10-50nm width, with the aspect ratio value of 10.3 nm. According to XRD investigations, the semi-crystalline cellulose was observed with the presence of an amorphous broad hump and crystalline peaks at 2θ of 15o and 22.7o, respectively. The crystalinity index of the raw filter paper was calculated as 86.7 % and increased to 94.4 % as it was extracted to NCC. Crystallite size of raw filter paper and NCC was calculated as 20.6 nm and 11.4 nm, respectively

Environmental awareness and depletion of the wood resources are among vital factors that motivate various researchers to explore the potential of agro-based crops as an alternative source of fiber material in paper industries such as writing, printing, wrapping, and packaging. Fibers from agro-based crops are available in abundance, low cost, and most importantly its biodegradability features, which sometimes referred as “ecofriendly” materials. This paper reports the biopulping of pineapple leaf fiber (PALF) by Ceriporiopsis subvermispora towards the properties of its fiber and paper forms. The individual fibers were characterized having good tensile properties at 0.3% of fungus treatment and favourable structural properties as characterized by Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy. It was also shown that the PALF paper achieved desirable tear index value and uniform morphological observations compared to the conventional chemical pulping method. This new approach of pulping PALF finds applications in paper and packaging products which requires biofriendly characteristic and cost effective.

Rabbit is a traditional textile material and has protein content about 93%. Rabbit hair wastes are abundantly present in textile processing due to its poor spinnability. In order to recycle the waste rabbit fiber effectively, the rabbit protein was researched. The papermaking method was performed for the first time and their properties of the hybrid paper were discussed in this study. Different contents of rabbit protein were successfully prepared and mixed with pulp fibers to remade papers. Finally, performances of these papers were characterized. The results showed that the surface of the rabbit protein paper was flat, white and writing fluently. The ink absorbance of novel paper increased. Moreover mechanical properties of the rabbit protein paper were stronger than the untreated paper. The folding endurance decreased firstly and then increased.

Both water repellency and water vapour barrier properties were endowed at paper surface by coating with beeswax-chitosan latex. It was found that the water vapour transmission rate of coated paper decreased as the drying temperature increased. However, water contact angle was not affected with it. Although the surface morphology deformed at high drying temperature, the roughness values maintained at micro-scale. Further analysis indicated that the water vapour barrier property of coated paper was influenced by the density of the coating layer.

The study aimed to describe the alkaline treatment advantage to remove ash component from natural rice straws. Most of the ash component in the rice straw is silica. High ash content is particularly harmful to cutting tools and to chemical to recovery systems in the pulp paper industry. In this study, the silica content has been removed simply through by immersion process in the 5% sodium hydroxide solution to obtain de-silicated rice straw. The study revealed the effectiveness of this alkaline process and the compatibility in commercial practice. The rice straw pulping is considered competitively to complement the global demand of raw material in paper production. Therefore, the treated rice straw plays an important role in providing raw material in the form of wood and rice straw blend feedstock for pulp and paper industry.

The wettability of the carbon composite electrode on paper substrate was studied using contact angle measurement. Y-Shield HSF54 carbon composite material were coated on paper substrates with a mask using squeegee coating technique. Contact angles of the ten polar probe liquids with the HSF54 electrodes were measured using a customed-built image acquisition system. With the contact angles obtained for each probe liquid placed on the electrodes, the surface tension of the electrodes was determined using Fox-Zisman theory. The result showed that the critical surface tension of HSF54 carbon composite electrodes was 37.2 mN/m which is considered to be moderately hydrophobic.

Relaxation function can well reflect the microscopic polarization mechanism of dielectric. In order to analyze the influence of moisture and temperature on relaxation function of oil-paper insulation, building a physical model of the oil-paper insulation system containing moisture and obtaining the expression of relaxation function. Setting up a testing device for the oil paper insulation dielectric spectroscopy in the laboratory, the parameter values of relaxation function expression were obtained according to test result by Fourier inverse transformation. The results show that the relaxation function containing three relaxation factors are more suited for the relaxation of oil-paper insulation containing moisture content and microscopic polarization mechanism, moisture and temperature have a significant effect on relaxation function.

In this paper, a kind of fibrous TiO2 has been prepared through hydrothermal synthesis and a paper fabricated from the fibrous TiO2 has been obtained. The composition, morphology, and size of the fibrous TiO2 were characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) respectively. And the morphology of the paper was characterized by polarizing microscope. The thickness, softness, and writing properties of the paper were detected by a vernier caliper and a pen. The results indicate that the diameter of the fibrous TiO2 is ~ 200 nm, the thickness of the fabricated paper is ~ 0.35 mm, and the paper can be tolerated writing by a UM-100 ball pen. The excellent properties of the prepared paper may change the applications of fibrous TiO2 in papermaking industry.

By applying sodium hydroxide/urea and a sample freeze drying method, we successfully synthesized green cellulose aerogel from paper waste for the first time. We adjusted the cellulose concentration from 1.5 percents to 4 percents in the initial hydrogel. They yielded densities changing from 0.03-0.1 g/cm3.The absorption capacities varied from 9 to 20 times of their own weight. To investigate the water absorption capacity in relationship with the initial chemical dosage, we changed the input amount of urea and sodium hydroxide, which is the first study ever. The thermal conductivity of the 2 percents sample ranged from 0.029-0.032 W/mK. Besides, the material has a high potential to be used in diaper industry as it is biodegradable which is better than most super absorbent polymers.

Fluorocarbons were added into the mixture of modified starch and sodium alginate to get uniform coating solution, and the solution was then coated on the surface of transparent paper. The color as well as grease barrier property of paper at different coating weight were studied. The results showed that color under different coating weights were not significantly different from base paper. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) diagram showed the surface of paper became smoother and more homogeneous as the coating weight increased. The grease barrier property of coated papers were significantly improved compared with base paper according to Tappi-559 kit test. A highest grease rating number of 12 was obtained when the coating weight became 3.3 g/m2. The dynamic changes in contact angle studies revealed that the contact angle of the base paper was continuously decreased from 29.41 °minutes to 23.46 °within 20, the contact angles of coated papers were significantly increased, and reaching a steady state within 2min with the maximum rate of contact angle change was of merely 0.06 ° / min.

The use of agricultural wastes and natural materials in new technologies is a novel subject. Consequently, an attempt has been made to formulate a synthetic fluid using an organic water, Water Extract from Fermented Ground Maize (WEFGM) and compare its performance with water-based sample in turning operation using a mild steel as workpiece. Two samples of synthetic fluids were formulated from each of deionized WEFGM, ordinary WEFGM and deionized water as base-fluids at two composition (5 and 10%vol) levels of selected additives. The results of experimental analysis of heat transfer properties of these synthetic fluids exist, hence the need to ascertain the actual performance output. Temperature-Time Gradient (TTG) which is a rate of temperature drop (heat withdrawn) from the work zone was used as evaluation parameters. The result showed that deionized WEFGM is the most efficient of the entire samples at both compositions with an average TTG of 3.61 and 2.16 °C/min at 10 and 5% additive concentration respectively. At lower additive concentration which is more economically advantageous, the performance rating is deionized WEFGM>>WEFGM>>deionized Water. This implies that WEFGM is more effective than water as a base fluid for synthetic fluid in performance as it has been previously so reported in properties. Meanwhile, T-test statistical analysis (using IBM SPSS 23) shows that there is highly significant difference in TTG at each time of application of individual fluid (p0.05) implying that the fluids can all work as coolants and relatively have comparable performance output.

Proper waste management in Malaysia is needed for the organic wastes such as pineapple leaf and cassava peel where affects the increase the amount of solid waste dump into landfill. Thus, to overcome this problem agro waste material can be constructed in many production industries to commercialize the use of alternative fibre for the paper industry. The main objective of this study is to demonstrate the use of fibrous in pineapple leaf and cassava peel by production of alternative fibre based on chemical properties and surface morphology characteristic. This study conducted for the chemical composition by analysed by TAPPI Test method, Chlorination method and Kuchner-Hoffner method. Every chemical components analyse; Cellulose (Kuchner-Hoofner), Holocellulose (Chlorination method), Hemicellulose (Chlorination method), Hemicellulose, Ash content (T211-om-93), Lignin content (T222-om-98) and Sodium Hydroxide soluble (T203-om-88). The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe and determine the morphological characteristic of both crops. The result indicates that pineapple leaf more suitable for becoming an alternative fibre than cassava peels. Pineapple leaves have a high Holocellulose content (85.7%), cassava peels 66%, followed by Cellulose pineapple leaf (66.2%), cassava peels (37.9%). However, hemicellulose content in pineapple leaf (19.5%) less than cassava peels (37.0%). Lignin content of pineapple leaf is lower (4.2%) compared to cassava peels (7.52%) in this study. From SEM images, cassava peel contained abundance fibre such as hemicellulose and cellulose that is held by the lignin in it and Pineapple leaves give a condensed composition of fibre structure. The chemical compositions and morphology study of pineapple leaf and cassava indicate pineapple leaf have a high percentage to be used as an alternative pulp in paper making industry, promoting the green technology. However, cassava peels make some of properties that can also be through for the paper industry.

Dry rot fungus (Serpula lacrymans) is wood-decaying fungus. It grows frequently in our territory and it causes big damages on structures. Remediation of damaged structures is very difficult, sometimes impossible, therefore it is necessary to study preventive protection against dry rot fungus. PVA nanofibred fabrics with synthetic and natural biocidal additives were used for this experiment. Filter papers soaked in dopes with biocidal substances were other materials used for this experiment. Pieces of nanofiber fabrics and pieces of filter papers soaked in dopes were placed to Petri dishes with broth. Small cuts of dry rot fungus were placed around them. This experiment was performed in conditions, which promote the growth of dry rot fungus. Growth of dry rot fungus was studied.

This paper describes the method of treating wheat straw pulp black liquor with microwave radiation. The granular activated carbon and CuO are used as a catalyst.Effects of effective factors such as the total amount, ratio, microwave power, time on treating process are studied. The reaction mechanism is also researched. The results indicate that the oxidative decomposition process of lignin or organic pollutants is combined action of activated carbon and CuO absorption-degradation with microwave induced oxidization. This approach is easy to operate, quickly to treat, completely to react and no new pollutants. So it is used to treat black liquor of containing organic pollutes which is hardly degraded.

Nowadays, over 95 % of fly ash is used as construction products in the Czech Republic. However, around 80 % of fly ash is used for renovation of open-pit quarries and areas affected by human activity. Production of artificial aggregate is the way to use over 90 % of energy by-products in the building material industry. It is necessary to find appropriate combination of parameters of input materials and conditions of production to get optimal properties of aggregate. The paper gives an account of the influence of parameters of fly ash and conditions of firing on the quality of ceramic body made from fly ash. Temperatures of 1050 °C, 1150 °C and 1200 °C were examined. The research focused on the structure of the ceramic body as well as its physico-mechanical parameters.

The manufacturing of furniture using rattan is becoming common nowadays, and creates high amount of waste that can be value-added into binderless particleboards (BPB). In order to determine the suitability of the rattan waste for production of BPB, characterization of rattan waste is executed and reported in this paper. The physical properties such as density and moisture content of the rattan waste, together with its morphological study and thermal analysis as well as lignin content are evaluated. It is observed that density and moisture content for rattan waste are in the range of 0.64g/cm3, and 11.3% respectively. On the other hand, the morphology of rattan stem showed that rattan waste has various diameters of vascular bundles along with wide metaxylem vessels as well as thin-walled fibres. Thermal analysis of rattan waste explicated that rattan waste went through endothermic process with peak melting point of 177.80 °C during heating. The greatest weight loss occurred at 257.03 °C. Rattan waste has high lignin content of 21.2% that obtained through Klason lignin test. These promising preliminary results show that the rattan waste is appropriate to be used as raw materials in producing BPB.

Graphene is a remarkable material with high electron mobility, good mechanical strength and almost transparent. In this paper, we review the available methods which are chemical vapour deposition, Hummers and electrochemical exfoliation method for the production of graphene. Among the extensive studies in the application of graphene, supercapacitor has gained much attention nowadays. Therefore, we also briefly review the application of graphene as electrodes for the supercapacitor devices.

This document demonstrates how to affect the brightness of liquid package recycled pulp by hydrogen peroxide bleaching and FAS beaching. The optimum H2O2 bleaching process conditions: 8% H2O2, 4% NaOH, bleaching temperature 80 °C, bleaching time 1.5h. The best FAS bleaching conditions was FAS dosage of 0.5%, NaOH dosage of 0.25%, bleaching temperature at 80 °C, time for 30min. And bleaching had no adverse effect on the performance of bleached pulp fiber.

In this research, the laccase mediator system (LMS) was used to modify the unbleached triploid populus tomentosa alkaline hydrogen peroxide pulp (APMP). The changes of pulp brightness were measured and the effects of LMS on the subsequent hydrogen peroxide bleaching were also determined. Besides, the fiber morphology was analyzed by ESEM, and then the obvious changes of pulp have been recovered. In a word, the LMS has obvious effect on cellulose.

This paper made the detailed discourse for the study on using cellulase, hemicellulase hydrolysis of poplar fiber raw material to make glucose. The raw material used in this experiment is poplar, cellulase and hemicellulase enzymes are used. Hemicellulase is a complex system, xylose is regarded as the main chain for a lot of hemicellulose. The experiment used dry poplar as raw material, through the ball mill, ground poplar into wood powder. In the experiment, the optimal condition of enzyme hydrolysis of wood powder has been discussed based on reaction temperature, reaction time, enzyme concentration, and the pH value of reaction. Finally, under the optimal condition, use enzyme to hydrolyse wood powder, measure reducing sugar content by the DNS method, and calculate the rate of hydrolysis.

The Polyacrylamide (PAM) is a frequently used flocculant for high concentration suspensions removal in water treatment characterized by the generation of large and dense flocs. In this paper, by using the anionic PAM as flocculant, a full-scale experimental study was carried out on flocculating ferric flocs sludge with pelleting flocculation blanket process under scale of 19~38 m3/h. The investigation aimed to optimum the dosage of the PAM and evaluate the application of the PAM in ferric flocs sludge treatment. The experimental results indicated that the increasing of PAM dosage could improve both outlet turbidity and thicken sludge concentration obviously, under the raw wastes concentration of 285~1022 mg/L, the system could achieve ideal operation effect with PAM dosage of 0.3~2.7 mg/L and treatment unit surface loading of 19~38 m3/m2·H. The investigation results also proved that there exists an approximately linear relationship between optimal PAM dosage and raw sludge concentration, that is, the increasing of raw sludge concentration would require synchronously rising of the optimal dosage. While the relationship between maximum surface loading and raw sludge concentration appeared negatively linear dependence, the maximum surface loading would decreased linearly with the increasing of inlet sludge concentration.

In this paper, the use of biosorbents prepared from fruit wastes for removal of anionic dyes in wastewater was investigated. A versatile, scalable and configurable envelop protocol was developed for biosorbents screening and process scale-up evaluations. The results obtained show that enveloped systems did not alter equilibrium and kinetics profiles from those of the standard free sorbent-sorbate systems under the experimental conditions studied. Inherent non-ideal sorbent-sorbate interactions were likely contributor to the observed discriminating features of the linear isotherm fits of the enveloped systems. The results also showed that sorbent weight:sorbate volume ratio (S/L ratio) could be used to characterise the sorbent-sorbate system.

This paper presents a study on the different fire retardant treatment technologies influence on the physical and mechanical properties of bamboo particleboard. The results showed: the properties of bamboo particleboard would change with changing of fire retardant treatment technology; among them the treated technology of fire retardant spraying after resin blending had larger changed; compared with non-fire retardant bamboo particleboard, the density and moisture content (MC) and 2h thickness swell (2h TS) of fire retardant bamboo particleboard had a little improved, and their internal bond (IB) and modulus of rupture (MOR) and modulus of elasticity (MOE) had slightly reduced.

This paper presents a comparative evaluation of three lignocellulosic residues (coffee husks, spent coffee grounds and pequi husks) as precursor materials in the production of activated carbons (ACs). Results indicate that the precursor material has a significant effect in both physical and chemical aspects of the adsorbent, with the AC based on spent coffee grounds being the most effective for phenol removal, with maximum adsorption capacity comparable to commercial ACs.

Nowadays the traditional dyeing wastewater treatments based on flocculation-biochemical technology become more difficult than before. The study in this paper aim was it to probe how adding rare earths (REs) into iron-carbon micro-electrolysis process to advance dyeing wastewater degradation. Firstly, the principle was discussed. Then the experimental methods were stated and it followed by exploring effect of iron powder size on the dye decolorization rate. Next were design of the micro electrolysis orthogonal experiments and discussion of influences of related factors on waste water treatment. The experimental results show that besides common iron powder particle size and the processing time, the factors that have great influence on dyeing wastewater treatment are Ce4+, pH, La3+ and iron/carbon ratio. The sequence of factors influence on wastewater micro-electrolysis treatment is Ce4+ > pH > La3+ > iron/carbon ratio. When pH is 6, COD removal rate arrives at maximum 89%, however when the pH is in the case of too high or too low, the effect of sewage degradation is not good.

In recent years, research has shown the advisability of seeking new types of biofuel. It has been shown that apart from one-component fuel, it is also advisable to use mixtures composed of basic raw materials. These mixtures may have a favourable effect upon the overall recovery of such fuels. This paper focuses upon options for the energy use of various mixtures of biomass waste. Biomass waste originates from primary agricultural production and countryside maintenance. This mainly consists of plant residues, i.e. straw and hay. Pellets were made using the given biomass. The pellets were prepared by mixing plant residues with spruce shavings as well as from pure materials, i.e. wheat straw, hay and sawdust. Individual types of biomass were mixed in various ratios: 50% wheat straw + 50% hay, 50% wheat straw + 50% sawdust, 50% hay + 50% sawdust, 33% wheat straw + 33% hay + 33% sawdust. The following basic parameters of the prepared samples were monitored: humidity, calorific value and ash content. These parameters influence the environmental as well as economic aspects of options for using these plant residues as fuel. It was discovered during the tests that the highest calorific value was achieved using a sample of biomass prepared by mixing 50% straw and 50% hay. The highest humidity was found in a sample of sawdust and the highest ash content in a sample prepared by mixing 50% straw and 50% hay.

In recent years, with the excellent mechanical properties, good thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity and optical properties, Graphene is widely used in many fields such as chemistry, physics and material science .The preparation of graphene have had a very big progress.This paper reviews the chemical preparation methods of graphene and the application of Graphene / Chitosan composite.Then we point out the outlook of the application of the composite materials graphene with other biological macromolecules which are similar with chitosan.

In the paper there is compared wood char layer of various tree parts (branches, trunk, roots) from pine, fir, spruce, larch. The samples were thermally loaded by the radiating source. The course of thermal degradation was evaluated by the char laye. The obtained results showed the influence of tree parts and wood species on calculated fire technical parameters. The values of char layer of wood from branches were the lowest. The char layer of trunk wood was the highest in case of spruce.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A new kind of gypsum retarder was prepared from waste penicillin mycelium (WPM), a harmful solid waste from pharmaceutical factory. The results indicated that the optimum treatment conditions were pH value 11, temperature 80 °C and treatment time 1.5 h. Compared with sodium citrate and sodium polyphosphate, WPM retarder can effectively prolong the setting time of gypsum with less influence on mechanical strength. The crystal morphology microstructure of gypsum containing retarder was studied with SEM and the reason why the mechanical strength loss of gypsum were also explained in this paper.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-.