Search

To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, Malaysian government has identified green hydrogen (H2) as one of the potential energy sources. However, the high production cost of green H2 and technical complications of H2 storage conditions for distribution undermines the strategic framework of the H2 roadmap in Malaysia. The lack of investments in pre-requisite support infrastructure for the H2 production, conversion, and storage technologies impedes the progress of the H2 economy in Malaysia. Recently, ammonia (NH3) has emerged as a promising carbon-free energy carrier due to its increased ease and safety during transportation and storage. There is limited literature regarding the inclusion of an NH3 synthesis and storage loop in green H2 supply chains. This research proposes a systematic approach for the techno-economic evaluation of green H2 supply chains with green NH3 as a clean energy carrier of H2 storage and distribution. A superstructure-based mathematical optimisation model was developed to synthesise the optimum supply chain network configuration for a given optimisation objective. A case study is solved to illustrate the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household products such as dishwasher products and multipurpose cleaners may contain specific chemical ingredients to meet the consumer needs. However, some of the ingredients may result in skin and respiratory irritation. Thus, a systematic methodology to estimate the extent of hazard and risk for consumers’ exposure to the products is needed. In this work, an index-based methodology is presented to estimate the severity of the hazards and risks of the ingredients at during the early stage of product design. Higher score was assigned to the higher potential of hazard and risk, and vice versa. The hazard potential was determined based on hazard classification by the Global Harmonised System (GHS). Risk assessment was performed by considering the Margin of Exposure (MOE) and Risk Characterization Ratio (RCR). To demonstrate the proposed methodology, the dermal and inhalation hazards as well as risks from ingredients used in formulation of liquid detergent were evaluated.

Biohythane production via single‐stage anaerobic digestion (AD) is an effective way for sustainable energy recovery from lignocellulosic biomass. In this paper, biohythane was produced through the AD process from pineapple peel waste substrate using purely cultured Methanosarcina mazei with the enhancement of palm oil mill effluent (POME) sludge as the inoculum. This study focuses on the effects of the lignocellulosic pre‐treatment method, the addition of POME sludge into M. mazei culture medium as inoculum, and various operational conditions (food to microorganisms (F/M) ratios, temperature, pH) on gas production performances. The experimental results indicate that these parameters influenced the efficiency of biohythane production by producing the peak maximum biohythane production rate values (HPRmax) and (MPRmax), H2:CH4 = 1.93:0.67 L/L‐d, and biohythane yield (HY) and (MY), H2:CH4 = 1.18:0.55 mL/L‐substrate. This study demonstrates that biohythane gas (H2 + CH4 + CO2) production from pineapple waste can be accelerated by M. mazei only with the enhancement of POME sludge through single‐stage AD system under mesophilic batch process conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the health risk analysis of haze pollution in Pasir Gudang and Larkin. The relationship between health risk and economic effect due to air pollution exposure in Johor is still poorly understood. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between air pollution and health. Then, the economic impact due to smoke haze on associated outpatients was calculated. Daily morbidity data from 2014 to 2016 for three haze-related illnesses were collected from two health clinics. Data on air quality were obtained at two Continuous Air Quality Monitoring (CAQM) stations in Johor. Health risks for all age categories in the haze periods were higher than those in non-haze periods. The outpatient morbidity cases in health clinics increased with the rising occurrence of smoke haze in Johor Bahru. The average annual economic losses due to the outpatient health impact of haze were valued at RM83,233 and RM107,486 for Pasir Gudang and Larkin, respectively.

Over the years, safety and health effects among consumers due to the exposure of formulated products have been reported. Thus, there is a need for systematic methodologies to assess the safety and health effects of the candidate’s ingredients in the early stages of formulated product design. Therefore, an index-based methodology was proposed to assess the safety and health effects in formulated product design. Product Safety and Health Index (PSHI) highlights the health sub-indexes based on the exposure routes including eye, inhalation, ingestion, and dermal. Each exposure route has its corresponding health sub-indexes that have to be applied. There are also new sub-indexes introduced for ingestion and dermal exposure. A case study on paint formulation was used to illustrate the developed methodology. The results show that the newly proposed index is able to identify hazardous chemical ingredient(s) with its corresponding adverse safety and health effects.