International tourists revisit intention: A case of the United Arab emirates / Abdul Rahim Julaimi, Salim Abdul Talib and Mohd Zulhilmi Suhaimi

The connection between past travel experience and tourists revisits behavioral intentions has not been widely explored, but the existing studies suggest a close relationship between them. Tourism-related products of a country can equally be construed to have effects on the attitudes of the tourists at the end of their actual visitation and satisfaction of a tourist with his or her travel experiences contribute to loyalty to a particular destination. It has also been acknowledged that destination image affects visitors’ subjective perception, consequent behaviour and destination choice. This paper is reviewing the constructs and dimensions which associated with international tourist revisit intention using the United Arab Emirates as contextual study setting and proposed the study conceptual framework

Bioremediation a potential approach for soil contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: An Overview

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) represent a group of priority pollutants which are present at high concentration in soils of many industrially contaminated sites. Standards and criteria for the remediation of soils contaminated with PAHs vary widely between countries. Bioremediation has gained preference as a technology for remediation contaminated sites as it is less expensive and more environmental friendly. Bioremediation utilizes microorganisms to degrade PAHs to less toxic compounds. This technology degrades contaminants through natural biodegradation mechanisms or enhanced biodegradation mechanism and can be performed in-situ or ex-situ under aerobic or anaerobic conditions. The purpose of this paper is to highlight potential of using isolated strains from municipal sludge on soil remediation. Several indigenous bacteria from municipal sludge namely genus Micrococus, Sphingomonas, and Corynebacterium demonstrated a high removal rate of PAHs with more than 80% of lower molecular weight of PAHs degraded after one week incubation. Laboratory studies had established that these genus able to degrade PAHs on contaminated soil. The successful application of bacteria to the bioremediation of PAHs contaminated sites requires a deeper understanding of how microbial PAH degradation proceeds. An overview of research focusing on biodegradation of PAHs will be presented

Degradation of Phenanthrene in Liquid Culture and Sand Slurry by Corynebacterium urealyticum

Most studies on PAHs biodegradation evaluated the degradation potential of microorganisms under indigenous condition in either liquid or solid. There are limited studies on evaluation of the same microorganisms in degrading PAHs under non-indigenous condition in both liquid and solid media. This study investigated the potential of the bacterium, Corynebacterium urealyticum isolated from municipal sludge in degrading phenanthrene in both liquid and solid media. Batch experiments were conducted over 20 days. Batch reactors containing artificially contaminated phenanthrene minimal media and sand slurry were inoculated with bacterium culture. Percentage phenanthrene degradation in liquid culture and sand slurry were found to be 87% and 29%, respectively. Apart of having higher rate in liquid culture, the degradation activity by bacterium remain active throughout the experiment.  There were no significant differences on the degradation of phenanthrene at low and high initial phenanthrene concentrations in liquid cultures, which differed to the observation in sand slurry. From the viable count analysis, it was observed that this bacterium immediately adapted to the new environment. This study shows that Corynebacterium urealyticum show better capability in degrading phenanthrene in liquid culture compared to sand slurry. Keywords: Bioremediation, Corynebacterium urealyticum, liquid cultures, Phenanthrene, sand slurry

Determinants of Food Heritage towards Food Identity

Many studies on traditional food and food products towards identity have been carried out, but there is insufficient study relating to heritage context. In exploring this issue, conceptual frameworks have developed and examined the relationship between the determinants of food heritage and food identity. A total of 898 self-administered questionnaires were collected from the public in Klang Valley area, Malaysia and using statistical analysis using partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) from PLS 3 software to established the validity and reliability of the model as well as the relationship between the two factors. Results revealed that there are eight construct determinants of food heritage and one construct of food identity that represent the conceptual model, and there is a moderate relationship between the two variables.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: Determinants; food heritage; food identity; PLS-SEM

Biosorption of heavy metals using Pleurotus Ostreatus fungal mycelium from mushroom farming waste / Prof. Sr. Ir. Dr. Suhaimi Abdul Talib … [et al.]

Industrial wastewater containing heavy metals are hazardous, which pose a detrimental health implication to human and environment. Global industrialization development has increased the discharge of this dangerous industrial wastewater to surface water. It is of great concern nowadays due to its toxicity, non-biodegaradable and cumulative characteristics. Heavy metals, such as lead, cadmium, copper, nickel and mercury, are from metal plating, painting and metal finishing industries. The most commonly used method in heavy metals treatment for industrial wastewater is precipitation with caustic soda. However, this method generates a large amount of hydroxide sludge which need further disposal. In view of this, interest which focus on green sustainable biosorption process, has been intensified among researchers recently. Biosorption is a passive metabolic independent process involving physico-chemical binding of metal ions with biosorbent, which from nonliving biological materials. The biosorbent offers two major advantages, namely, renewable and cost effective. It is easily regenerated by using diluted acid for reuse and transformed from available large amount of bio-waste to wealth. Biosorbents from agricultural and industrial waste which are available in respective countries, such as Brazil, India, Pakistan, Iran, China and Turkey have been investigated. Fungal Pleurotus ostreatus (Chia-Chay et a/., 2011, Javaid et a/., 2011) and sawdust (Zakaria et a/., 2009) are promising biosorbents due to their high heavy metals removal efficiency if compared to other plant or bacteria derived biosorbents. To date, there is lack of information on biosorption of Pleurotus ostreatus Mushroom Spent-Substrate (PSMC) in wastewater heavy metals treatment. Generally, the PSMC is an agricultural waste of mushroom cultivation farm in Malaysia, which majorly consists of rubber tree sawdust and Pleurotus ostreatus mycelium. The disposal of PSMC is currently handled by open-burning or converted into low commercial value organic fertilizer in order to reduce cost for solid waste disposal. Studies on PSMC as a potential biosorbent for heavy metals treatment is yet to be explored. Meanwhile in biosorption study, the half saturation constant of biosorption evaluation is seemed hardly been carried out as a time saving approach for this alternative sustainable technology. Presently, little research is applying the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) in biosorption study. Kardam and co-researchers (2010) reported that constructed ANN models were highly precise in predicting the single output variable. In fact, such single output ANN network has a limitation in simulation of biosorption operating system for prediction of effluent quality and the best time for elution of biosorbent under any operating conditions. This study is thus expected to make contribution to the knowledge of scale-up biosorption of heavy metals technology. This study focuses on biosorption characteristics of heavy metals biosorption from aqueous solution by deploying PSMC. The half saturation constant of heavy metals biosorption and the best operating parameters of initial pH, contact time and initial heavy metals concentration were optimized. Biosorption data were fitted to established isotherm, kinetic and thermodynamic models. Concurrently, mechanisms of heavy metals biosorption were studied. Application of biosorbent was evaluated in industrial wastewater. Furthermore, a constructed ANN modelling with two output in biosorption study is explored. This study is not only parallel with green sustainable technology for heavy metals treatment but also waste management

Identification of bacterial strains capable of degrading Malaysian petroleum sludge / Noor Fazreen Dzulkapli ... [et al.]

In an organic sludge bio degradation process, identification of bacterial strains with effective biodegradation capabilities indigenous to the sludge is an important step as isolation and subsequent usage of such strains can enhance the rate of the biodegradation process. In this study, the identification of bacterial strains capable of degrading Malaysian petroleum sludge was carried out using a biolog system kit subsequent to enrichment, isolation and degradation processes. A total of 53 purified strains was obtained from the isolation process. Three strains, namely, Clavibacter michiganesis ss insidiosus, Rhodococcus rhodochrus and Brevibacterium otitidis showed favorable degradation results for nearly all hydrocarbons especially for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) (anthracene, phenathrane and dibenzothiophene). Brevibacterium otitidis is especially interesting since it is the first time such a strain has been reported to have good PAHs degradation capabilities

Exfiltration from sewers: effects of different types of leakage / Mohd Ashaari Ab Wahab ... [et al.]

This research was conducted to study exfiltration of wastewater from gravity sewers. Exfiltration through different types of sewer leaks were studied. With the different size of leakage areas and a constant thickness of soil bedding, it was found that the exfiltration rate reduces and became constant over a duration of one (1) to three (3) days. Knowing the exfiltration rate, the time taken for the polluted water exfiltrate from sewer pipes to reach the groundwater can be determined so that preventive measures can be taken to prevent it. From studies conducted, it can be shown that the size of the leakage area was found to play an important role in determining the size of the clogging zone, the increased in the clogging zone resulted in the decreased of exfiltration rate due to the accumulation of organic matters at the edge of the leakage area and trapped in the pores of the bedding soil

Renewable energy from biogas generated by sewage sludge: relationship between volume of sludge and volume of biogas / Aminuddin Muhamad Baki ... [et al.]

Biogas composed of methane and carbon dioxide is a by-product of anaerobic bacteria decomposition of organic waste which municipal garbage and sewage are important sources for biogas production. The methane content in the biogas enables it to be used as engine fuel and converted to heat and electricity. An experimental study that examined the relationship between organic content of sludge and methane generation as it progressed through mesophilic anaerobic digestion was completed. This case study is needed to determine organic content represented by BOD and SS in sewage, to quantify the biogas and methane generation from sewage sludge, to determine the relationship between organic content and volume of methane and also to determine the pressure of biogas and the relationship between sludge volume and volume of biogas. It was found that methane generation is potential during anaerobic digestion even with small volume of sludge. The quality of sludge for methane generation is dependent on the characteristics of sludge. Organic content characterized by Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Total Suspended Solid (TSS) were measured in accordance to APHA standard methods (1998). Wastewater from two treatment plants namely, Kolej Mawar, UiTM and IWK WWTP Section 7, Shah Alam were used in this study. This study, found that higher organic content in sewage sludge will result in higher methane being generated

The half saturation removal approach and mechanism of Lead (II) removal using eco-friendly industrial fish bone meal waste biosorbent

Lead (II)-laden wastewater from lead acid battery and printed wire board industries are hazardous to human health and environment due to their toxicity and persistent characteristics. This study focuses on ecofriendly industrial Lutjanus erythropterus fish bone meal waste as biosorbent for Lead (II) removal. In this study, the effects of optimization of biosorption, isotherm, kinetic, thermodynamic, characterization of biosorbent were investigated, and the characteristics of biosorbent were compared with those of commercial resins. The half saturation removal of biosorbent amount was determined at 0.09 g in order to represent the excessive metal in real industrial wastewater condition compared to biosorbent and to minimize the consumption of chemicals and biosorption operation time. Such approach is supported by optimization results and Langmuir isotherm. Results obtained were better with Freundlich than with Langmuir isotherm, confirming the presence of heterogeneous monolayer with reversible binding sites. The biosorption mean energy inferred that chemisorption occurred in Lead (II) biosorption, and pseudo-second-order kinetics implied that chemisorption mechanism is the rate-limiting factor

Electrophoretic deposition of adsorbed arsenic on fine iron oxide particles in tap water

Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique has been demonstrated to remove arsenic with natural adsorbent (fine iron oxide particles) in tap water samples. Characterizations of metal element particularly arsenic and fine iron oxide particles in tap water from two different locations, i.e. commercial and residential areas, were conducted. Results showed that the concentration of arsenic in tap water from residential area was higher than commercial area samples i.e. 0.022 ± 0.004 and 0.016 ± 0.008 ppm, respectively. The same finding was observed in zeta potential value where it was higher in the residential area than commercial area, i.e. −42.27 ± 0.12 and −34.83 ± 0.23 mV, respectively. During the removal of arsenic using the EPD technique, direct current (DC) voltage was varied from 5 to 25V at a constant electrode distance of 30 mm. Effect of zeta potential, voltage and electrode type were intensively investigated. High percentage removal of arsenic was obtained from carbon plate than carbon fibre electrode. The percentage removal of arsenic from all samples slightly decreased with increasing of the applied voltage. EDX analysis confirmed that arsenic has adsorbed onto deposited iron oxide particles on the anode electrode. Overall, EPD technique was found to be successful in removing arsenic onto fine iron oxide particles in tap water with 26% ± 1.05 of removal