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The presence of impurities, microorganisms, enzymes, suspended solids, and impurities in unclarified pomelo juice negatively affected the quality and shelf-life of the product in the food industry. The objective of this study focuses on the clarification of fresh pomelo juice using an ultrafiltration (UF) process. The study examined the influence of the operating pressure (OP) on the various quality attributes of pomelo juice, such as pH, total soluble solids (TSS), turbidity, color, total phenolic content (TPC), ascorbic acid content (AAC) and fouling mechanisms and permeate flux (J) behavior. To perform the clarification of pomelo juice, a 100 kDa membrane (polymeric) was used in a dead-end system, and the process was carried out in batch mode at OP values of 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 bar. The findings revealed that increasing OP led to higher flux during ultrafiltration with limiting pressure (Plim). The limiting pressure (Plim) was anticipated to be beyond 3.0 bar due to the enzymatic pretreatment. The primary fouling mechanism during the clarification process was total pore blocking. After filtration, the resulting juice showed a significant reduction in turbidity of over 97, while TSS was lowered by 7–17 compared to fresh juice. The pomelo juice was efficiently clarified while the pH remained stable at ∼3.8. The clarified juice showed a minor decline of 10.1–13.9 in TPC and a 10.8–16.7 reduction in AAC compared to the fresh unclarified juice. In conclusion, a pressure of 3.0 bar is recommended for conducting the ultrafiltration process in order to attain desirable flux behavior and optimum properties of the juice.

Background: Palm kernel is the edible seed of the oil palm fruit obtained during the palm oil milling process. For efficient processing and storage, the moisture content of palm kernel must be reduced to an optimal level by drying. This study aimed to see how drying influenced the physical structure and physicochemical properties of palm kernel and oil. Before and after drying, the free fatty acid (FFA), color, fatty acid composition, Fourier transform infrared, thermal properties and structure of palm kernel were investigated. Results: Results show that drying significantly (P < 0.05) reduced FFA and color of palm kernel oil. Drying also significantly affected (P < 0.05) composition of some fatty acids in palm kernel oil such as capric acid, lauric acid, myristic acid, palmitic acid and oleic acid. However, drying did not affect palm kernel and palm kernel oil functional groups and thermal properties. After drying, structural damage of palm kernel was observed. Conclusion: Based on these findings, the quality of kernel oil may be maintained after drying, and it can even be improved based on lower FFA content. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

The dark brownish color effluent from palm oil mill effluent (POME) has continued to receive considerable interest and posed widespread concern due to its repercussions on water bodies. This study examines the performance of hydrophilic composite hollow fibre poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)-polyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP) membrane embedded with titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles as a robust antifouling intermediary for the decolourization of palm oil mill effluent (POME). The nanocomposite hollow fibre membrane with varied TiO2- nanoparticles loadings (0-2.0 wt.%) were swirled through phase inversion procedure to provide a negatively charged surface. The developed nanocomposite membranes were analyzed and compared according to SEM, contact angle, EDX, permeability flux, COD and color removal, and fouling resistance from (POME). Color removal, fouling resistance, and flux permeability enhanced with a rise in TiO2 loading. The flux efficiency of the membranes was assessed using pure water and POME as a feed liquid. Results show that the membraneembedded with 1.0 wt% concentration of TiO2 exhibited higher performance showing pure water flux and POME flux, COD and color removal of 120.74 L/m2h, 74.3 L/m2h, 90.1%, and 94.7% from POME respectively. Furthermore, an excellent fouling hindrance was attained, thereby allowing the percentage of flux recovery ratio (FRR) recorded was 95.46%, 92.49%, and 87.49%, after three cycles of uninterrupted filtrations for a period of 540 min. Yet, declination in flux and fouling resistance was observed at supplemental loading of 1.5 and 2.0 wt%- TiO2 owing to the accumulation of nanofillers in the membrane matrix at the higher concentrations.

This work aims to develop corn starch/chitosan nanoparticles/thymol (CS/CNP/Thy) bio-nanocomposite films as potential food packaging materials that can enhance the shelf life of food. CS/CNP/Thy bio-nanocomposite films were prepared by the addition of different concentrations of thymol (0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5 w/w%) using a solvent casting method. The resulting films were characterized in terms of optical, mechanical, and water vapor permeability (WVP) properties. The addition of thymol was found to reduce the tensile strength (TS), elongation at break (EAB), and Young’s modulus (YM) of the films. Generally, the increment in the concentration of thymol did not significantly affect the TS, EAB, and YM values. The addition of 1.5 w/w% thymol increased the WVP of the films but the WVP reduced with the increase in thymol concentrations. CS/CNP/Thy-3% bio-nanocomposite films demonstrated the potential to lengthen the shelf life of cherry tomatoes packed with the films, whereby the cherry tomatoes exhibited no significant changes in firmness and the lowest weight loss. In addition, no mold growth was observed on the sliced cherry tomatoes that were in direct contact with the films during 7 days of storage, proving the promising application of the films as active food packaging materials.

Production of small-sized peptides is significant because of their health benefits. Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane provides an effective fractionation of small-sized peptides on a large scale. Thus, the present study was aimed to evaluate the performance of multilayer UF membrane in fractionating tilapia fish by-product (TB) protein hydrolysate by observing the permeate flux, peptide transmission, and peptide distribution under different stirring speed, pH of feed solution, and salt concentration (NaCl). The fractionation process was carried out using a dead-end UF membrane system that consists of a stack of two membrane sheets with different (10/5 kDa) and similar (5/5 kDa) pore sizes in one device. The highest permeate flux (10/5 kDa–39.5 to 47.3 L/m2.h; 5/5 kDa– 15.8 to 20.3 L/m2.h) and peptide transmission (10/5 kDa–51.8 to 61.0%; 5/5 kDa–18.3 to 23.3%) for both multilayer membrane configurations were obtained at 3.0 bar, 600 rpm, pH 8, and without the addition of salt. It was also found that the permeates were enriched with small-size peptides (<500 Da) with a concentration of 0.58 g/L (10/5 kDa) and 0.65 g/L (5/5 kDa) as compared to large-sized peptides (500–1500 Da) with concentration of 0.56 g/L (10/5 kDa) and 0.36 g/L (5/5 kDa). This might indicate the enrichment of small-size peptides through the multilayer membrane which could potentially enhance the biological activity of the protein hydrolysate fraction.

The loss and impact of non-renewable fossil energy on global warming concerns are prompting to intensive research to find viable, less emissions-oriented alternative energies. The present work aims to study the potential of hydrogen gas production (for renewable energy) by electrocoagulation process from landfill leachate. The Design-Expert software for response surface methodology (RSM) was used to investigate the process variables in the hydrogen production system. The effects of three independent variables; namely pH (4-8) and voltage (3-9 V), using different types of electrodes (Al, Fe, and Ni) were studied. At the optimal condition of voltage 9V and initial pH 6 at 20 minutes, the Al electrode recorded an upturn maximum H2 yield of 697 ppm, while 554 and 551 ppm were obtained with Ni and Fe electrode, respectively. Moreover, the coefficient of determination (R 2) showed a good relationship between actual and expected results.

This study focused on developing a hydrophilic hybrid polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)-polyethylene glycol (PEG) hollow membrane by incorporating Nano-magnesium oxide (NMO) as a potent antifouling mediator. The Nano-hybrid hollow fibers with varied loading of NMO (0 g; 0.25 g; 0.50 g; 0.75 g and 1.25 g) were spun through phase inversion technique. The resultants Nano-hybrid fibers were characterized and compared based on SEM, EDX, contact angle, surface zeta-potential, permeability flux, fouling resistance and color rejection from palm oil mill effluent (POME). Noticeably, the permeability flux, fouling resistance and color rejection improved with the increase in NMO loading. PVDF-PEG with 0.50 g-NMO loading displayed an outstanding performance with 198.35 L/m2·h, 61.33 L/m2·h and 74.65% of water flux, POME flux and color rejection from POME, respectively. More so, a remarkable fouling resistance were obtained such that the flux recovery, reversible fouling percentage and irreversible fouling percentage remains relatively steady at 90.98%, 61.39% and 7.68%, respectively, even after 3 cycles of continuous filtrations for a total period of 9 h. However, at excess loading of 0.75 and 1.25 g-NMO, deterioration in the flux and fouling resistance was observed. This was due to the agglomeration of nanoparticles within the matrix structure at the excessive loading.

This work focused on the addition of different pore formation-controlling agent to a polysulfone/cellulose acetate blend membrane via immersion precipitation using phase inversion technique to improve the fouling resistance and selective polyphenol removal of apple juice. The membranes were prepared by blending hydrophilic polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and amphiphilic Pluronic F127 (Plu) with polysulfone/cellulose acetate matrix in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone. The morphology, mechanical strength, flux permeation, flux recovery ratio, and polyphenol separation of these membranes were characterized. It was found that the fabricated membranes with addition of PVP and Plu were more effective than the membrane without a pore formation-controlling agent. The flux recovery of the membranes with combined pore formers after ultrafiltration of bovine serum albumin increased from 12.4% to 66.9%. The selectivity of polyphenols increased from 6% to 79% with an improved flux recovery of 79%, which shows the reduction of yellowish-brown pigment in apple juice.

An investigation was made to examine the performance of sandwich configurations of paired ultrafiltration membranes in reclamation of water from final discharged POME. Two membranes were sandwiched together in different configurations without spacer. Two types of membrane were used in this study which were PES and RC with MWCO 5kDa. The sandwich configurations were known as SS-Sandwich, SB-sandwich, where S indicates that the skin layer faces the feed and B indicates that support layer faces towards the feed. The result of single membrane was compared with both sandwich arrangement. SS-sandwich configuration showed the best permeate quality for PES MWCO 5kDa. The pollutant reduced range up to 80%-90% compared to single membrane which were 60%-70% range. The quality of permeate obtained for total dissolved solid (TDS), suspended solid (mg/L), turbidity, BOD5, COD, were 535 mg/L, <25 mg/L, 0.88 NTU, BOD5 23.3 mg/L, and 48 mg/L. The quality of permeate from SS-sandwich membrane of 5 kDa was beyond reuse standard and approaching drinking water standard for TSS, TDS and turbidity. Therefore it can be concluded that, water reclaimed from treating final discharged from palm oil mill effluent using ultrafiltration technique with right sandwich configuration at optimum operating conditions was successfully complied with WHO reuse water standard.

Modification of tilapia by-products (TB) into fish protein hydrolysate (FPH) using enzymatic treatment is a favorable approach for enhancing their values and applications in the food industry. The TB protein hydrolysate has a wide range of sizes, which is possible to be fractionated using ultrafiltration (UF) membrane for obtaining small sized peptides. Thus, the present study aims to assess the flux reduction behavior of ultrafiltration membrane by varying transmembrane pressure, stirring speed and solution pH. Regenerated cellulose membrane of 10 kDa molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) was used throughout of the study. It was found that the trends for flux behavior of all parameters were reaching steady state within 60 - 70 minutes. At completion of filtration (at 70 minutes), the highest permeate flux for each operating and physicochemical parameters were at 3 bar (13.6 L/m2h), 600 rpm (42.8 L/m2h) and pH 8 (53.4 L/m2h). In term of protein rejections, significant effects were attained for stirring speeds with reduction of 57% from 0 to 600 rpm and lowest protein rejection (9.6%) was obtained at pH 8. Thus, controlling the operating parameters of the UF process could reduce membrane fouling.

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is the largest pollutant discharged into the rivers of Malaysia. Thus UF membrane study was conducted to investigate the effect of pressure and stirring speed on performance of POME treatment and fouling of membrane. Two types of membrane polyethersulfone (PES) and regenerated cellulose (RC) with molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) 5 and 10 kDa were used in this study. Results showed that, as pressure increased, fouling increased however permeate quality improved, the best pressure was 1.0 bar, where the fouling was not too high and produce good permeate quality. As stirring speed increased, fouling reduced and permeate quality improved, however, when stirring speed increased from 600 rpm to 800 rpm, there was no significant improvement on the permeate quality. Therefore, the best condition was at 1.0 bar and 600 rpm. PES membrane with MWCO 5 kDa showed the best permeate quality, even fouling slightly higher than RC membrane. The permeate quality obtained were analyzed in term of dissolved solid, turbidity, suspended solid, biological oxygen demand (BOD5) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) were 538 mg/L, 1.02 NTU, < 25 mg/L, 27.7 mg/L and 62.8 mg/L, respectively with dominant type of fouling is cake resistance. Thus, it can be concluded water reuse standard was successfully achieved in terms of BOD5 and suspended solid.

The study is focussed on the fabrication of various polysulfone/cellulose acetate (PSf/CA) polymer ratio with high polymer concentration of 20 wt. % via dry/wet phase inversion technique for membrane performances. These membranes were prepared by blending four different polysulfone/cellulose acetate ratios of 100/0, 90/10, 80/20 and 70/30 in a solvent, known as N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP). The effect of different polymer ratio on membrane characteristic are discussed in term of flux permeation, morphology, mechanical strength, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis and flux recovery ratio (FRR). The increment of cellulose acetate composition resulted in different behaviours of membrane characteristic. The highest CA ratio (70/30) in PSf/CA composition obtained the highest flux permeation. Meanwhile, the flux recovery of 90/10 wt % membrane achieved the highest flux recovery, 59 % compared to 80/20 wt. % and 70/30 wt. % membranes with values of 12 % and 25 %, respectively. Interestingly, membrane with 80/20 wt. % observed an average improvement in flux permeation with a consistent increased. The formation of uniform finger-like voids in the sublayer of this membrane (80/20) encouraged a good mechanical strength for the membrane structure.

Palm oil mill effluent contains carcinogenic coloured compounds that are difficult to separate due to their aromatic structure. Though colour treatment using adsorption processes at lower pH (<4) have been reported effectual, due to its acidity the remediated effluent poses an environmental hazard as a result. Thus, the current study focused on achieving decolourization at neutral pH by enhancing the morphology of the coconut shell activated carbon (CSAC) using N₂ as activating-agent with microwave irradiation heating. The microwave pretreated and non-pretreated CSAC were characterized using scanned electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. A significant modification in the porous structure with a 66.62% increase in the specific surface area was achieved after the pretreatment. The adsorption experimental matrix was developed using the central composite design to investigate the colour adsorption performance under varied pH (6⁻7), dosage (2⁻6 g) and contact time (10⁻100 min). At optimum conditions of neutral pH (7), 3.208 g dosage and contact time of 35 min, the percentage of colour removal was 96.29% with negligible differences compared with the predicted value, 95.855%. The adsorption equilibrium capacity of 1430.1 ADMI × mL/g was attained at the initial colour concentration of 2025 ADMI at 27 °C. The experimental data fitted better with the Freundlich isotherm model with R² 0.9851.

Tilapia is a popular freshwater fish and among the important cultured fish grown worldwide. In this study, fish protein hydrolysate was produced from tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) by-product (TB) and tilapia muscle (TM) through enzymatic hydrolysis using alcalase. The TB and TM protein hydrolysates were evaluated for its characteristics in terms of angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition activity, peptide size distribution, and functional properties. Hydrolysis for 1 h for TB and TM successfully produced low molecular weight peptides (<14.2kDa) with the highest ACE inhibitory activities. The findings also demonstrated that both samples have high nitrogen solubility (>80% at pH2-9) and good emulsifying, water and oil holding capacities. The study indicated that tilapia protein hydrolysates have the potential to be used as functional food products.

An investigation was made to examine the performance of sandwich configurations of paired ultrafiltration membranes in reclamation of water from final discharged POME. Two membranes were sandwiched together in different configurations without spacer. Two types of membrane were used in this study which were PES and RC with MWCO 5kDa. The sandwich configurations were known as SS-Sandwich, SB-sandwich, where S indicates that the skin layer faces the feed and B indicates that support layer faces towards the feed. The result of single membrane was compared with both sandwich arrangement. SS-sandwich configuration showed the best permeate quality for PES MWCO 5kDa. The pollutant reduced range up to 80%-90% compared to single membrane which were 60%-70% range. The quality of permeate obtained for total dissolved solid (TDS), suspended solid (mg/L), turbidity, BOD5, COD, were 535 mg/L, <25 mg/L, 0.88 NTU, BOD5 23.3 mg/L, and 48 mg/L. The quality of permeate from SS-sandwich membrane of 5 kDa was beyond reuse standard and approaching drinking water standard for TSS, TDS and turbidity. Therefore it can be concluded that, water reclaimed from treating final discharged from palm oil mill effluent using ultrafiltration technique with right sandwich configuration at optimum operating conditions was successfully complied with WHO reuse water standard.

To reinforce the use of kenaf-derived cellulose as a compatible plastic filler, the cellulose (C) was thermally grafted with various concentrations (5, 8, and 11 wt.%) of hydrolysed 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APS). The silane-grafted cellulose (SGC) were named as SGC5, SGC8 and SGC11. C (30 wt.%) and all of the SGC were respectively melt-compounded into poly(lactic acid) (PLA) before being hot-pressed into ∼0.3 mm sheets, which is the approximate thickness of clamshell packaging. The intermolecular interaction between SGC and PLA, which was absent with C, was confirmed via Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). PLA filled with SGC5 or SGC8 showed significant improvement in thermal, tensile, physical, and barrier properties compared with the PLA/C composite. In contrast, adverse effects were observed with the PLA/SGC11 composite. 8 wt.% of APS was concluded as the critical concentration to be thermally-grafted onto the kenaf-derived cellulose as PLA/SGC8 composite showed optimum reinforcement in tensile strength (52 MPa), crystallizability (16% crystallinity), water resistance (5.3%) and dimensional stability (3.3%), and significantly shifted oxygen barrier from medium-low range to medium range (3.2 ×10−17 m3 m/m2 s Pa). Overall, the variation in the properties of these biocomposites may extend PLA's range in food packaging applications.

Abundant oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) generated from the palm oil mill industry create huge problems for the environment and the palm oil mill itself. Despite the importance of determining the amount of oil left in the OPEFB, little research of that nature has been reported. This study describes the oil content and physicochemical characteristics of OPEFB fibers, detection of oil attachment on the fiber’s surface using sudan red dye, contact angle values, and also the quality of the residual oil. The OPEFB fibers, which are normally used as mulch for the palm oil mill, have been found to be a rich source of lignocellulosic materials, especially cellulose, which constitutes 33.70 to 35.10% for a press-shredded fiber. Residual oil (3 to 7% on dry basis) extracted from the OPEFB exhibits good quality parameters such as deterioration of bleachability index (DOBI), free fatty acid (FFA), and peroxide value (PV). The DOBI values were still in the acceptable range, which is from 1.94 to 2.43, while the PV results are within the range of about 1.84 to 2.80 meq/kg. The major fatty acids of the residual fiber oil were palmitic and oleic acids, at 39.77% to 39.89% and 39.55% to 42.60%, respectively. There were no significant changes in the macronutrients and quality of the OPEFB residual oil. Therefore, the residual oil from the OPEFB should be recovered and reused as a raw material for industrial applications, boosting the oil extraction rate (OER) in the palm oil industry.

The effects of filling poly(lactic acid) (PLA) composites with cellulose thermally-grafted with hydrolysed 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APS) were investigated. Composites containing 30 wt% of kenaf-derived cellulose (C) and silane-grafted cellulose (SGC) were melt-blended into a PLA matrix before being hot-pressed into 0.3 mm sheets. The tensile strength of neat PLA was 47 MPa. With addition of C and SGC, the tensile strength was improved by 13% and 23%, respectively. The tensile modulus was approximately doubled for both of the composites. PLA/C and PLA/SGC composites remained brittle with marginally lowered elongation at break. The addition of C and SGC significantly increased the oxygen barrier of PLA with the reduction of oxygen transmission rate (OTR) of PLA at 76.6 cc/m2 /day to 42.2 cc/m2 /day and 40.3 cc/m2 /day, respectively. This was due to the tortuous path created and crystallites induced by the fillers. The water vapour transmission rate (WVTR) for PLA, PLA/C and PLA/SGC was in the range of 21-23 g/m2 / day. From the water absorption test, PLA/SGC reported slightly better water resistance as compared to PLA/C. The reinforcing results from these bio-based materials may suggest contribution towards packaging oxygen and moisture sensitive food.

Fish protein hydrolysate was recovered from tilapia by-product (TB) through enzymatic hydrolysis using alcalase enzyme. Hydrolysis reaction of TB was monitored according to the degree of hydrolysis (DH) by employing O-phtaldialdehyde (OPA) method. Optimization process for obtaining high yield of TB protein hydrolysate was performed using response surface methodology (RSM) by optimizing a combination of four independent variables namely, pH (6.5-8.5), temperature (55-70°C), substrate concentration (10-17.5% w/v), and enzyme concentration (1.5-3.5% w/w) with (DH) as a response. The optimum enzymatic hydrolysis conditions were obtained at pH 7.5, temperature of 60°C, substrate concentration of 15% (w/v) and 2.5% (w/w) of enzyme concentration and yielded about 20.20% of DH after hydrolyzing for 120 min. RSM generated model predicted that 20.42% of DH could be achieved at these conditions and this model was valid based on the DH value obtained from the experimental study (20.31%) which was quite similar with the predicted value. High yield of DH obtained from the optimization process could produce fish protein hydrolysate with good nutritional and functional properties.

The effects of filling poly (lactic acid) (PLA) composites with cellulose thermally-grafted with hydrolysed 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APS) were investigated. Composites containing 30 wt% of kenaf-derived cellulose (C) and silane-grafted cellulose (SGC) were melt-blended into a PLA matrix before being hot-pressed into 0.3 mm sheets. The tensile strength of neat PLA was 47 MPa. With addition of C and SGC, the tensile strength was improved by 13% and 23%, respectively. The tensile modulus was approximately doubled for both of the composites. PLA/C and PLA/SGC composites remained brittle with marginally lowered elongation at break. The addition of C and SGC significantly increased the oxygen barrier of PLA with the reduction of oxygen transmission rate (OTR) of PLA at 76.6 cc/m2 /day to 42.2 cc/m2 /day and 40.3 cc/m2 /day, respectively. This was due to the tortuous path created and crystallites induced by the fillers. The water vapour transmission rate (WVTR) for PLA, PLA/C and PLA/SGC was in the range of 21-23 g/m2 / day. From the water absorption test, PLA/SGC reported slightly better water resistance as compared to PLA/C. The reinforcing results from these bio-based materials may suggest contribution towards packaging oxygen and moisture sensitive food.

The capability of bio-sourced plasticizers epoxidized palm oil (EPO) and epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) in toughening and aiding the melt-processing of PLA were investigated. At various loadings, they were melt-compounded with PLA and hot pressed into 3-mm sheets for impact strength testing. From the torque and stock temperature curves obtained during compounding, both plasticizers rapidly reduced the torque and stock temperature. While EPO readily supports the processing and toughens PLA, higher content of ESO is needed to perform correspondingly. These improvements suggest the potential of using EPO and ESO as plasticizer substitutes which shall contribute in the PLA processing industry.

Fish protein hydrolysate was prepared from tilapia muscle using commercial Alcalase enzyme. Optimization of enzymatic hydrolysis process for preparing tilapia muscle protein hydrolysates (TMPH) was performed by employing central composite design (CCD) method of response surface methodology (RSM). O-phtaldialdehyde (OPA) method was employed to calculate the degree of hydrolysis (DH), which is the key parameter for monitoring the reaction of protein hydrolysis. The suggested model equation was proposed based on the effects of pH, temperature, substrate concentration and enzyme concentration on the DH. Optimum enzymatic hydrolysis conditions using Alcalase enzyme were obtained at pH7.5, temperature of 50oC, substrate concentration of 2.5% and enzyme concentration of 4.0%. Under these conditions, the highest value of the DH was achieved at 25.16% after hydrolysing at 120 min. The TMPH was further assessed for their nutritional value with respect to chemical and amino acid compositions. Molecular weight distributions of TMPH were characterized by SDS-PAGE. TMPH contains moderate amount of protein (28.14%) and good nutritive value with respect to the higher total amino acid composition (267.57 mg/g). Glutamic acid, aspartic acid and lysine were the most abundant amino acids present in TMPH with values 42.68, 29.16 and 26.21 mg/g, respectively. Protein hydrolysates from tilapia muscle containing a desirable peptide with low molecular weight which may potentially to be used as functional food products.

Palm oil mill effluent (POME) in palm oil industry has become a big issue of environmental pollution to be solved urgently and critically. This wastewater consists of water, oil, and natural sediments. Hence, in this study, the work was carried out to investigate ultrafiltration process feasibility for treating palm oil mill effluent. Palm kernel shell bioactivated carbon (PKS-AC) adsorbent was used in adsorption treatment (pre-treatment) was used to reduced solid particles in POME. For adsorption treatment, POME was stirred with 0.20 g/L of PKS-AC at 39.94 minute and sediment for one hour. Membrane separation was subsequently applied to further treat the pre-treated POME. In this study, the permeate flux was found to be dependent to pressure applied, solution pH and stirring speed. An optium conditions was achieved at pressure 2 bar, with solution pH 8 using stirring speed 600 rpm. Considerable amount of POME pollutant is also reduced by used membrane for TS, DS, SS, BOD5, COD and turbidity were 625.32 mg/L, 445.32 mg/L, 180 mg/L, 1296 mg/L, 541.76 mg/L, and 16.20 NTU respectively. Thus, this result show that the pollutant in POME was reduced significantly using this technique.

The effect of pH, ionic strength and feed concentration on performance of ultrafiltration (UF) to fractionate Catfish protein hydrolysate (CFPH) through 5kDa regenerated cellulose (RC) membrane was studied. The highest and lowest permeate flux belonged respectively to pH 9 and isoelectric point (IEP) with flux reduction of 5.75 L/m2.h at pH 9 and 10.98 L/m2.h at pH isoelectric through operating time. Further, by adding the salt, the highest permeate flux and transmission obtained at highest ionic strength of 0.15 M NaCl with 52.96% of transmission (in average). Then, the transmission reached to 54.18% by increasing feed concentration up to 1.5 mg/ml.

Several by-products, such as skin, bones, frames, heads and tails are produced during the processing of tilapia fish (Oreochromis niloticus) into fillets. These by-products can be converted into tilapia by-producthydrolysate powder(TBHP) with beneficial functional properties. The TB hydrolysate produced through enzymatic hydrolysis was characterized in term of chemical and amino acid (AA) compositions, molecular weight distribution and ACE inhibition activity. TBHP has showna good nutritional value with high protein content (62.71%)and essential amino acids (199.15 mg/g).High value of ACE inhibition activity (88.26%) in TBHP might be due to the presence of low molecular weight peptides.

The application of membrane separation technology coupled with adsorption treatment (pre-treatment) can be effective means of treating palm oil mill effluent (POME).The pre-treatment process was done by stirring the raw palm oil mill effluent (POME) with 0.20 g/L of palm kernel shell-based activated carbon (PKS-AC) in 35.94 min with stirring speed 39.82 rpm and able to reduce 71.26% of suspended solid. Ultrafiltration membrane separation was subsequently applied for further treatment of POME. From a random observation on the result, it was found that at pressure 2 bar with 600 rpm speed and pH 8 obtained lower dissolved solid (123.70 mg/L) and turbidity (4.50 NTU) concentration.

This study relates to the mathematical modelling of enzymatic production of Cyclodextrins (CDs) by Cyclodextrin Glucanotransferase (CGTase) from Bacillus macerans. The experiments were carried out in batch mode using different starch sources and the results were used to estimate unknown parameters using linearization and dynamic simulation methods. ?- and ?-CD produced from tapioca were found to give the highest Michaelis-Menten constant, KM,i of 58.23 and 54.07 g L-1, respectively and maximum velocity, Vmax,i of 3.45 and 2.76 g L-1.min, respectively, while sago resulted in the highest KM,i and Vmax,i values of 342.35 g L-1 and 5.97 g L-1.min, respectively, for ?-CD obtained by the linearization method. Value of product inhibition, K1,i and CD degradation coefficient rate, ?CD,i, were estimated using dynamic simulation, indicating that exponential reaction kinetics could be fitted better with the experimental data. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the product inhibition parameter in the exponential reaction kinetic equation is more significant in the process. For validation, the production of CDs by fed batch method was undertaken and starch and enzyme were added into the reaction medium. Then, the predicted profiles generated by simulation were compared with the experimental values. The proposed exponential reaction kinetics shows good fitting with the experimental data.

The effects of thermally grafting hydrolysed 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APS) onto kenaf-derived cellulose and the influence of incorporating them into poly(lactic acid) (PLA) were investigated. Composites containing 30 wt.% cellulose (C) and silane-grafted cellulose (SGC) were melt-blended into PLA before being hot pressed into 0.3-mm films. The silane grafting of cellulose was confirmed via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) with the presence of Si-O-Si, Si-O-cellulose, -Si-C-, and Si-O-C bonds, and –NH2 groups despite post ethanol washing. Using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), it was determined that the thermal stability of the cellulose improved by 8 °C after silane grafting. As for the composites, PLA/SGC improved the thermal stability by 12 °C as compared to PLA/C. From differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), adding C into PLA slightly reduced the glass transition temperature, Tg, of the PLA from 59 °C to 57 °C, which remained unchanged with silane grafting. PLA displayed double melting peaks from its melt-recrystallization behaviour. While the final melting temperature at 150 °C was not affected, incorporating C and SGC influenced the intensity of the melting peaks. The significant reduction in crystallisation temperature from 113°C to 102 °C and 105 °C, and the increase in crystallinity by almost two fold, indicated that cellulose was an effective nucleating agent.

An attempt was made to reclaim and recover palm oil mill effluent (POME) for water reuse using tubular ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. The reclaimed water was compared with the final discharged water of the local mill. The raw POME was first subjected to a physical pre-treatment process to remove the content of organic matter and suspended solids. The pre-treatment process was coupled with membrane technology (UF and RO) to reclaim the clean water from POME. From the combined techniques of UF (5 bar) and RO (30 bar) the results showed that the turbidity and BOD5 were reduced by 99% and 98.9%, respectively. Compared to the final discharged POME, this suggested method gives a significant difference in BOD5 and turbidity. The final permeate of RO was found to comply with the standards for water reuse. Therefore, the combined UF and RO method is a viable alternative and has a great potential for use in the palm oil industry.

Tilapia has received much attention to be used as a source of food protein. In making tilapia fish as a source of food protein, there are many by-products (head, frame, and tail) produced during the processing of fish which are usually discarded. The nutritional properties of tilapia muscle and by products were quantitatively determined. It was found that the proximate compositions of tilapia muscle were 18.59 ± 0.35% of crude protein content, 80.66 ± 0.48% of dry matter content, 1.15 ± 0.07% of ash, 0.38 ± 0.06% of oil content and 27.02±0.30 mg/g of soluble protein content. While for tilapia by-product were 14.60 ± 0.30% of crude protein content, 66.57 ± 0.39% of dry matter content, 8.93 ± 0.46% of ash, 5.50 ± 0.30% of oil content and 25.83 ± 0.45 mg/g of soluble protein content. Identification of amino acids composition on tilapia muscle and by product have found that the total amino acid content were 93.08 ± 1.08 g/kg and 92.80 ± 1.48 g/kg respectively while the essential amino acid were 36.57 ± 0.51 g/kg and 31.38 ± 0.51 g/kg respectively. The most abundant amino acid in tilapia muscle was glutamic acid (15.94 ± 0.22 g/kg), while for tilapia by product was glycine (14.35 ± 0.22). Lysine was the most abundant essential amino acid in tilapia muscle and by product (7.03 g/kg and 5.55 g/kg respectively). These results indicate that tilapia fish has excellent source of protein, particularly an essential amino acids such as lysine. Along with a growing interest in food protein to be used as food ingredient, it appears tilapia fish has very good potential to serve as source of protein.

Selected physical properties of oil palm kernel are required for its drying studies. The effect of moisture content on physical properties of oil palm kernel was determined in the moisture range of 28-2% (d.b). These include physical dimension, shape, surface area, specific surface area, bulk density and true bulk density. Length, width, thickness of the palm kernel ranged from 16-14 mm, 12-11 mm, 10-9 mm respectively and these dimensions did not vary over the various moisture contents. However, the bulk density, surface area and specific surface area of palm kernel increased linearly as the moisture content increased. There was reduction in porosity and true density as the moisture content increased. A study on equilibrium moisture content of local variety of palm kernel was conducted. At temperature of 50˚C and relative humidity of 50 %, EMC value obtained from other studies was found to be 1 to 3 times higher compared to current study. EMC is found to decrease with increasing temperature and, at constant temperature, EMC increased with increasing relative humidity, which is consistent generally with established EMC behavior. The experimental drying data on single kernel available in the literature was utilized to develop thin layer drying model by fitting the data with several common thin layer drying equations available in the literature. It was found that Lewis model could be fairly used (R2=0.86) to represent thin layer drying of oil palm kernel; however, further study is needed to obtain more suitable thin layer drying model for palm kernel.

An attempt was made to the changes of turbidity and suspended solid of palm oil mill effluent (POME) using activated biocarbon (bio-char) made up from coconut shell. The complete study was done in batch mode to investigate the effect of various operating parameters. The effect of treatment time, adsorbent dosage, agitation speed and pH was significantly effect on the turbidity and suspended solid in POME. Using 0.5 g of coconut shell charcoal (CSC)/100 ml at pH 4.2 with 90 rpm agitation speed in 10 minute the turbidity and suspended solid was reduced up to 84.3 % and 86.7% respectively. As a huge reduction of turbidity and suspended solid in POME, it could be a lucrative technique for treatment of domestic wastewater generated in palm oil sectors.

The effectiveness of high-pressure steam treatment (HPST) with various treatment temperatures (170, 190, 210, and 230 °C) on the enzymatic hydrolysis yield of oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) was successfully investigated. Analysis of the compositions of raw and treated OPEFB showed that significant changes occurred after the HPST was performed. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed that the treated OPEFB gave better results in removing the silica bodies as compared to the untreated OPEFB. This analysis was in agreement with FTIR results, which revealed a significant decrease in the content of hemicelluloses after HPST. During saccharification, the amount of sugar produced was higher for treated OPEFB than untreated OPEFB. Thus, the results suggest that HPST can be applied as an alternative treatment method for the alteration of OPEFB structure and to enhance of the digestibility of the biomass, therefore improving enzymatic hydrolysis.