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Polluted river water treatment utilizes a mix of physical, chemical, and biological processes and activities. Conventional systems, including coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection, have several limitations. Hence, the Membrane Photocatalytic Reactor (MPR) is one of the most promising methods for polluted river water treatment. ZnO-Kaolin nanoparticles served as great photocatalysts for MPR performance. This study focuses on the pilot-scale hybrid MPR treatment of polluted river water under different light intensities (100, 125, and 225 watts) and irradiation times (20, 30, and 40 minutes). The treated water quality analysis is based on the Environmental Quality Act 1974 (EQA 1974). The kinetic rate was also investigated using pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models. It was found that 225 watts and 30 minutes were the optimum values. The pilot scale hybrid MPR proved to fit well with the pseudo-second-order kinetic models, suggesting that the degradation follows a chemisorption mechanism. In conclusion, we believe the hybrid MPR pilot-scale system will enhance efficiency in cleaning dirty river water, all while meeting the standards of the EQA 1974.

A fixed bed downdraft gasifier model based on computational fluid dynamic (CFD) framework was developed to investigate the influence of feedstock (palm kernel shell [PKS] and coal) on the quality of syngas produced via the gasification process. Euler–Euler approach was utilized in this study to describe the gas and solid phases. Realizable k-? turbulence model was used to evaluate the constitutive properties of the dispersed phase and the gas phase behavior. This simulation model was validated by comparing the syngas composition of gasification simulation of coal with previous research, which yielded the overall accuracy result of 83.2%. This study also highlighted that PKS gasification produced 53.74% and 90.51% higher composition of H2 and CO respectively as compared to coal gasification. Whereas coal gasification produced 81.35%, 71.31% and 52.29% higher composition of CH4, H2O and CO2 respectively as compared to PKS gasification. Hence, PKS produced 66.2% higher combustible gas of H2 and CO than coal. PKS is thus considered as a potential renewable feedstock for gasification process as an alternative to the non-renewable coal. In addition, PKS gasification produced 52.29% lesser composition of CO2 as compared to coal gasification.

Design process of a motorcycle secondary electronic lock system is reported in this paper. The design of a smart lock was established based on an available conventional lock in the market. The process began with design generation to gather related idea and design concept. The design then was subjected to concept evaluation through a design matrix to determine the best option. In addition, selection of internal component and mechanism were evaluated through a morphological chart. The design and component were selected based on the highest score in term of functionality, fabrication, safety and marketability. The chosen design was then converted to a 3D model using computer aid design (CAD) and a simulation strength test was applied to the model by using a commercial software. The simulation using common hacking tool used by theft was successfully conducted and showing positive results on its robustness.

A building is an assemblage that is firmly attached to the ground and provides the performance of human activities and need to be considered in the daily operation in that building. The improvements in building performance are focused on improving the energy efficiency of buildings. This is approach by designing heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) duct system due to one of the most utilized energy in maintaining building performance and environment. The objectives of this research is to calculate the air (CFM) supply in office building, to characterize the velocity and head loss in a round and rectangular HVAC ducting system at various duct thickness and to optimize the thickness of the duct in HVAC system according to ASHRAE Standard. The increasing of velocity in duct system shows the increasing of head loss. The round duct design gives the lowest velocity and head loss in HVAC system approximately around 9.35% as compared to rectangular duct at 0.06 inches thickness. Hence, the trends of the head loss and duct thickness has influenced in reducing noise in HVAC duct system in order to select the best design concepts which is round shape design.

Experimental works for analysing flow behaviour inside human trachea has become continuous problem as the model used to study cannot imitate the real geometry of human trachea structure. As the technology develop, Rapid Prototyping (RP) become more useful in constructing the 3D model that has complexity in their geometries. RP not only offer several technologies in developing the 3D model, but also varies type of materials that can be used to manufacture the 3D model. In this study, RP technique was chosen to develop the 3D model of human trachea to do the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) experimental works. Material used was Vero Clear due to PIV need a model that transparent so that visualization on flow inside the model can be seen and the velocity magnitude can be capture. The geometry was adapted from 60 years old trachea patient where the images of trachea was taken by using CT-scan. MIMICS software was used to extracted the images before reconstruct the trachea into 3D model. Velocity distribution was visualized and the magnitude were taken at both left and right bronchi. From the analysis, it concluded that the distribution of airflow to the second generation of trachea was 60:40 to right and left bronchi. It follows the rules as the right bronchi need to supply more air to the right lung compared to left as the volume of right lung bigger that left lung.

This paper describes the development of a biometric authentication system in a battery-powered locking device. It differs from the conventional locking system, which connected to an external power supply. The system focuses on a fingerprint-based identification with single button operation. A fingerprint sensor readily available in the market was integrated with an Arduino as the processing unit to unify the button operation as means to trigger functions on the fingerprint sensor and actuator motors, as well as indicating lights for user feedback. The aim of the seamless fingerprint authentication requires a brief matching of users’ fingerprints. A prototype of the system was built and tested. It was found that the device is able to match a fingerprint in less than 1s for up to 50 registered fingerprints. Using a nominal battery capacity of the 12V lithium battery pack with 5000mAh, the amount of current supply to the actuator is sufficient for 400 activations.

This paper describes the development of a biometric authentication system in a battery-powered locking device. It differs from the conventional locking system, which connected to an external power supply. The system focuses on a fingerprint-based identification with single button operation. A fingerprint sensor readily available in the market was integrated with an Arduino as the processing unit to unify the button operation as means to trigger functions on the fingerprint sensor and actuator motors, as well as indicating lights for user feedback. The aim of the seamless fingerprint authentication requires a brief matching of users’ fingerprints. A prototype of the system was built and tested. It was found that the device is able to match a fingerprint in less than 1s for up to 50 registered fingerprints. Using a nominal battery capacity of the 12V lithium battery pack with 5000mAh, the amount of current supply to the actuator is sufficient for 400 activations.

Diesel engine performance and emission rely greatly on the diesel spray. A lot of researches conducted to study the diesel spray characteristics in a closed chamber. However, it cannot describe in detail about the phenomenon since the chamber condition such as pressure and size play a role in s pray characteristics. It would be beneficial to conduct an experiment in open chamber. Hence, this research would develop a new experiment apparatus and analyze the diesel spray characteristics in open chamber. In this research, common - rail injector tester is used to simulate the actual common - rail injection diesel engines. The injection pressure is varied from 100MPa to 180MPa. A high speed camera with 3,000 frames per second is used to capture the diesel spray formation using direct photography technique. From the result, spray development angle, and fully developed spray angle is studied. The results revealed early at the injection, the spray angle increased swiftly before slowly decreased as reaching fully developed spray phase. At the fully developed phase, spray angle proved to be decreased as the injection pressure increased.

Fire Safety Engineering is an application of science to improve the safety from the destructive effect of the fire. Paper is well known as a material that can easily catch fire. Nowadays, many researchers have been interested to produce paper by using other natural fiber to reduce the usage of wood as raw material for paper production. However, research on flame spread towards combination paper / natural fiber is still a lack of data. Inspiration from this, the behavior of downward flame spread over paper and bagasse is experimentally investigated. This experiment is conducted by using the specimen with different thickness and different composition of bagasse. Specimen thickness is chosen at 0.7mm, 1.4mm, 2.1mm and 2.8mm; while for bagasse composition is 0%, 30%, 50%, 70% and 100%. Flame spread behavior for each specimen is videotaped by using a camera. The result showed that the flame spreads with “U” pattern at the beginning of the combustion, but end up with different pattern according to thickness and composition of bagasse. It is seen that flame spread rate decreases with increasing the thickness and composition of bagasse for the specimen. The result also shows that up to 70% bagasse, the flame spread rate is approximately constant even for different thickness.

This work looks into the effect of Steam to Carbon ratio (S:C) on methane (CH4 ) conversion and hydrogen (H2 ) yield over coated Nickel Aluminide (Ni3 Al) catalyst in micro reactor. The Ni3 Al is an intermetallic alloy which known to have good catalytic activity and selectivity. The Ni3 Al catalyst precursor was prepared through dip coating technique at 10wt% on top of substrate plate and characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope-Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), Temperature Programming Reduction (TPR), activated by H2 reduction, and catalytic activity test in steam methane reforming (SMR) reaction in micro reactor at S:C 2, S:C 3 and S:C 4 with 650°C reaction temperature and 300 minutes reaction time. The characterization showed the presence of Ni3 Al on top of the coating surface and successfully been activated at 500°C and 46 minutes. The CH4 conversion and H2 yield in the product of the reaction were quantified using the Gas Chromatograph technique. From the series of experiments, it was found that S:C 4 produced the highest methane conversion of 65.56% and S:C 3 produced the highest hydrogen yield of 41.34%. The S:C 2, showed faster and smoother stability trend conversion as early as 180 minutes from the start of the reaction. However, S:C 3 showed the most optimum methane conversion and hydrogen yield and achieved stability trend conversion within the defined reaction time range of 300 minutes. It is inferred that the S:C 3 is the best steam to carbon ratio for the developed catalyst in these settings.

Improvements in the diesel fuel injection systems can provide efficient combustion in internal combustion engine. However, the detail relationship between the diesel injector nozzle cavitation parameters are still remain unclear. The main goal of this research is to verify the flow characteristics inside the fuel injector nozzle by using CFD. A computational fluid dynamics cavitation models of diesel injector nozzles is presented and tested. Then, the experimental data are used to validate the models. The researcher used the same shape configeration and boundary condition. The injection event is inherently transient, as the injection pressure varies with the needle lift position. In order to capture this transient aspect within a steady-state formulation, this study performed simulations for different lift positions for the base nozzle. The results is done for the flow distribution for needle lift positions at 0.275 mm, 0.2 mm, 0.15 mm, and 0.1 mm. The corresponding velocity vector is plotted in order to explain the transient cavitation behavior. The velocity vectors for needle lift=0.275 mm indicate that the flow entering the orifice encounters a sharp bend (i.e., large velocity and pressure gradients) at the top of the orifice inlet causing cavitation in this region, However, with needle lift position at 0.15 mm, the flow entrance into the orifice is relatively smooth.

Dye wastewater is the major environmental issue of the textile and printing industries besides other minor issues like solid waste, health and safety. The use of synthetic chemical dyes in various manufacturing industrial process has increased considerably over the past decades, resulting in the release of dye-containing industrial effluents into aquatic ecosystem and soil [1]. Wastewater from printing and dyeing industries is frequently rich in color, containing residues of toxic chemicals, reactive dyes and requires proper treatment before all the effluent release into environment [2]. There are more than 8000 chemical products associated with all the dyeing, printing and finishing process listed in the color index, including some of the structural diverse of dyes, such as basic, acidic, reactive, disperse, azo, diazo, anthraquinone based and metal-complex dyes [1]. Therefore, these wastes must be genuine treated before it discharge to environment in order to comply with the environmental protection for the receiving water.

Malaysian palm oil industry has grown rapidly over the last few decades, to becoming the world’s largest producer and exporter of palm oil. This success story however, comes with a greater challenge and equally required more sacrifices in order to maintain the tempo. In the year of 2004, it has been recorded that 26.7 million tons of solid biomass and approximately a 30 million tons of palm oil mill effluent (POME) were generated from 381 palm oil mills in Malaysia [1]. Although different kind of wastes are generated in the palm oil mills, the perceived harmful waste among all the waste generated is the palm oil mill effluent (POME) due to its associated harm if discharged into the environment untreated [2]. POME is a colloidal suspension originating from mixture of sterilizer condensate, separator sludge and hydro cyclone wastewater in a ratio of 9:15:1 respectively [3]. It is a brownish colored, thick liquid that is containing high amount of oil, solids, and grease with high Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) values. Table 15.1 describes the characteristic of POME obtained from Malaysian Palm Oil Board.

The search for clean alternative energy sources is vital to feed the ever-increasing world energy consumption. It is widely accepted that hydrogen is the cleanest and abundant energy source of the future. Currently, more than 90% of world hydrogen production is made via catalytic steam methane reforming (SMR). A performing catalyst favors thermodynamic equilibrium that ensures good hydrogen selectivity. This research explores the potential of SMR yield intensification using experimental micro reactor and active noble metal catalyst (Rhodium aluminide and Ruthenium aluminide). For that purpose, a laboratory scale SMR test rig bench was designed, fabricated and developed. A new micro channel reactor with interchangeable catalyst modules for methane conversion process was set up and tested. The rig is able to provide evaluation of SMR experimental tests, such as catalyst performance, conversion rate and products at output stream, with controlled reactants steam to carbon ratio up to 5:1 and reaction temperature up to 700°C. The developed conventional and noble metal catalyst for this research, affirmed and proved that the combination of test rig bench and micro reactor managed to generate methane conversion according to the theory related to material catalyst. From this work, reaction temperature 650°C and steam to carbon ratio of 3:1 were found to yield the optimum methane conversion and hydrogen formation for the developed catalyst. Using such setup, the use of noble metal catalyst was able to reform methane to hydrogen within 1 minute from the start of reaction as compared to 60 minutes using conventional catalyst. It was found that the rate of reaction (methane disappearing rate) of –r´CH4 (mol CH4 / g catalyst.s), for Rhodium aluminide yield the highest of 181.58, followed by Ruthenium aluminide with 154.39 and lastly Nickel aluminide of 1.32. The outcomes of this work has the potential to be scaled up for hydrogen production supply chain system of future fuel-cel

LPG has a higher research octane number (RON) and low carbon to hydrogen ratio contains. Thus LPG has prospects to gain more performance and reducing the exhaust emission in spark ignition (SI) engine. The objectives of this study are to identify the influence liquid phase LPG system tested on SI engine and investigate the performance and exhaust emission of LPG and gasoline. The contain LPG has 60% butane and 40% propane, according to Materials Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). The experiment was operating on a 1.6 Liter, 4 inline cylinders from a Proton Gen 2 (S4PH). The engine fuel delivery was equipped with Multiport Injection (MPI) system. Injectors LPG Liquid Sequential Injection (LSI) was mounted at close intake valve without disturbing gasoline injectors. To control the LPG injector system, the piggy-back system was installed as to emulate the stock Electronic Control Unit (ECU). The engine was tested via chassis dynamometer at steady state conditions to analyze the Brake Power (BP) and Brake Torque (BT) at a desired engine speed from 1500rpm to 4000rpm with increments of 500rpm. Meanwhile, the Throttle Position (TP) was varied at four conditions that were 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% for every single engine speed. The result of the performance showed liquid phase LPG increased BT and BP in the range of 3% to 7%, BSFC was reduced in the range 21% to 52%. The exhaust emission from carbon monoxide (CO) was decreased in the range of 2% to 19%, exhaust emission from a hydrocarbon (HC) was emitted increment in the range of 40% to70% and nitrogen oxide (NOX) exhaust emission was elevated in an average of 60% in comparison with gasoline. The LPG LSI system is more effective than gasoline in Spark Ignition (SI) engine at lower engine speed (1500rpm to 2500rpm) due to low Brake Specific Fuel Consumption (BSFC) and exhaust emission.

Fire Safety Engineering is an application of science to improve the safety from the destructive effect of the fire. Paper is one of sources creating fire, however, research on flame spread towards paper is still not enough to describe about the phenomenon. Inspiration from this, the behavior of downward flame spread over paper/bagasse is experimentally investigated. Composition of 0%, 30%, 50%, 70% and 100% bagasse is determined for this research. Flame spread behavior for each composition is analyzed from the observation. Results show for each composition, the flame spreads with “U” shape at the beginning of combustion until the whole specimen. The result also shows that the flame spread rate decreases as bagasse composition increases. The highest flame spread is 0.8133 mm/s for pure paper and the lowest one is 0.4814 mm/s for pure bagasse. It infers that the flame spread shape and rate is influenced by the bagasse composition and density, respectively.Â

Gas chromatography (GC) equipment classified chemical elements in a sample through a separation method based on the relative molecular mass. This paper describes the replacement of a capillary C5 and above Hydrocarbon Column of a Perkin Elmer Clarus 500 GC with a capillary C1-C5 hydrocarbon column from a different manufacturer. The use of appropriate carrier gas and a new standard procedure for C1-C5 hydrocarbons column, which produce the fastest appearance, largest and most stable detector signal area’s patterns microVolt-seconds as qualitative and quantitative results were analysed. Several injector temperatures, sample split ratios, carrier gas flow rates and detector temperature were experimented. The effectiveness of nitrogen, helium and hydrogen as carrier gas were observed. The outcome showed that the combination of different column and GC equipment manufacturer works properly without any error. From the qualitative analysis of element configuration, the optimum setting found are; 250°C injector temperature, 1:15 split ratio, 2.5 ml / min flow rate and 275 ° C detector temperature. Hydrogen gas was found to be the best carrier for natural gas samples containing compounds that allot over a wide temperature range. In addition, a quantitative reference standard, detector signal area microVolt-seconds against concentration of Methane gas was prepared to be used as a benchmark for C1-C5 hydrocarbon conversion reaction analysis.

This work investigates the effect of reaction temperature on methane conversion and hydrogen yield over coated Nickel Aluminide (Ni3Al) as an intermetallic alloy catalyst in micro reactor. The Ni3Al was impregnated at micro scale using dip coating technique. The coating impregnation process, consist of a few stages which are substrates and solgel preparation, dip coating, calcination and reduction of oxide molecule. The coated Ni3Al were characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Temperature Programming Reduction (TPR) then activated using H2. The XRD and TPR results showed present of Ni3Al on the coated surface and was successfully activated at 500°C and 46 minutes. Meanwhile, the steam methane reforming with the catalytic reaction took place at temperature from 500°C to 700°C, steam to carbon ratio of 3:1 and 5 hours reaction time. The reaction temperature of 600°C obtained the highest methane conversion of 43% and hydrogen yield of 29%. The limitation point of reaction activity either as zero reaction or deactivation point was found at 500°C and 700°C. The coated Ni3Al showed catalytic activity for each reaction temperature and work accordingly on the heterogenous catalyst principal theory of lag, exponential, stationary and deactivation stage.