Profit efficiency among Islamic banks in Malaysia

The sustainability of banking system depends on the profit efficiency of banking system. Profit efficiency of lslamic banks in Malaysia shows a fluctuating trend from the period of 2012 to 2016. The purpose of this study is to analyse the post Global Financing Crises (GFC) period and to examine the impact of external and internal factors on the profit efficiency of lslamic banks in Malaysia covering the period 2012 to 2016. In this study profit efficiency is measured using net income (NI). Secondary data was used from 16 Islamic banks in Malaysia for Observation 80. There are two external factors which are Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Inflation (INF) and five internal factors which are Loan Growth (LGROW), Impaired Financing (IF), Loan Loss Provision (LLP), Net Interest Margin (NIM) and Staff Efficiency (STAFFX) tested in this study. This study used panel data analysis to analyse the data obtained from Fitch Connect Database. The study found that, factors like INF and STAFFX have negative significant impact on NI while NIM have a positive and significant impact on NI of Islamic banks in Malaysia. The other four factors which are GDP, LGROW, LLP and IF are found to be insignificant towards NI of Islamic banks in Malaysia. This study is beneficial for researches as guidance in making a good research. On the other hand, it is also important for the Islamic banks management team, investors as well as depositors for the purpose of gaining a greater understanding on the performance of the banks

Effects of deposition time and post-deposition annealing on the physical and chemical properties of electrodeposited CdS thin films for solar cell application

CdS thin films were cathodically electrodeposited by means of a two-electrode deposition system for different durations. The films were characterised for their structural, optical, morphological and compositional properties using x-ray diffraction (XRD), spectrophotometry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) respectively. The results obtained show that the physical and chemical properties of these films are significantly influenced by the deposition time and post-deposition annealing. This influence manifests more in the as-deposited materials than in the annealed ones. XRD results show that the crystallite sizes of the different films are in the range (9.4 – 65.8) nm and (16.4 – 66.0) nm in the as-deposited and annealed forms respectively. Optical measurements show that the absorption coefficients are in the range (2.7×104 – 6.7×104) cm-1 and (4.3×104 – 7.2×104) cm-1 respectively for as-deposited and annealed films. The refractive index is in the range (2.40 – 2.60) for as-deposited films and come to the value of 2.37 after annealing. The extinction coefficient varies in the range (0.1 – 0.3) in asdeposited films and becomes 0.1 in annealed films. The estimated energy bandgap of the films is in the range (2.48 – 2.50) eV for as-deposited films and becomes 2.42 eV for all annealed films. EDX results show that all the films are S-rich in chemical composition with fairly uniform Cd/S ratio after annealing. The results show that annealing improves the qualities of the films and deposition time can be used to control the film thickness. Keywords: Electrodeposition; two-electrode system; CdS; annealing; deposition time; thin-film

Aligned carbon nanotube from catalytic chemical vapor deposition technique for energy storage device: a review

Carbon nanomaterial especially carbon nanotube (CNT) possesses remarkably significant achievements towards the development of sustainable energy storage applications. This article reviews aligned CNTs grown from chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique as electrode material in batteries and electrochemical capacitors. As compared to the entangled CNTs, aligned or well organized CNTs have advantages in specific surface area and ion accessibility in which, more electrolyte ions can access to CNT surfaces for better charge storage performance. CVD known as the most popular technique to produce CNTs enables the use of various substrates and CNT can grow in a variety of forms, such as powder, films, aligned or entangled. Also, CVD is a simple and economic technique, and has good controllability of direction and CNT dimension. High purity of as-grown CNTs is also another beauty of the CVD technique. The current trend and performance of devices utilizing CNTs as electrode material is also extensively discussed