Photocatalytic activity of Zn0-PEG nanoparticles for palm oil mill secondary effluent (POMSE) treatment

Palm oil mill secondary effluent (POMSE) has a high color intensity, dissolve oxygen, turbidity, and an organic load of BOD which still not achieved the discharged requirement by the Department of Environment (DOE) and led to detrimental to the aquatic life. The photocatalytic degradation process is one of the promising methods in wastewater treatment due to its advantages. However, the study on PMSE treatment using the photocatalytic degradation process in the presence of ZnO-PEG nanoparticles (NPs) is still limited. Therefore, this study reports on the photocatalytic degradation of POMSE by using ZnO-PEG NPs. The ZnO-PEG NPs was characterized by using XRD and FTIR where the results show that there are no impurities present in the samples and presenting the nature and the chemical bonds of ZnO-PEG nanoparticle

An examination on the appointment and jurisdiction of women judges in the Selangor syariah court / Noor Hardiani Azhari …[et al.]

Two syariah women judges were recently appointed in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur. The appointment of women as judges in Muslim countries remains a controversial issue, due to a general perception that such appointment might not be in conformity with the syariah. The purpose of this research is to enlighten one of the contemporary legal dilemmas in Islamic law namely, the appointment of women judges in Malaysia. The methodology employed is library based research. This research will examine on the appointment and jurisdiction of women judges in Malaysian Syariah Court especially in the State of Selangor. There are various views that have been put forward in this research with regards to this topic. The focus of this research is to determine the legal status of appointment of women judges in Syariah Court. It is argued that women judges can be appointed in Muslim countries and that the main reason for this is the fact that there is no explicit prohibition of it in the fundamental sources of Islamic Law. There are also various opinions given by jurists regarding the jurisdiction of this women judges and which one was adopted in Malaysia. The outcome of this research is to prove that no appointment of women judges is required in Selangor Syariah Court as stated in the fatwa issued by the Jabatan Mufti Selangor

Performance of Forward Osmosis (FO) Membrane Fabricated from Different Molecular Weight of Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) Additive

Despite of the emergence of revolutionary Forward Osmosis (FO) technology, the membrane is hindered by the severe effect of internal concentration polarization (ICP) which generated in membrane substrate layer. In current study, polyethersulfone (PES) membranes substrate layer were fabricated via phase inversion using three different polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP; molecular weight of 10 kDa, 40 kDa and 360 kDa) which act as a pore former agent. Using 2 wt% of aqueous m-phenylenediamine (MPD) and 0.15 wt% of trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in hexane, the active polyamide layer was formed on the top surface of PES substrate via interfacial polymerization to produce thin film composite (TFC) FO membrane. The performance of TFC FO membranes were evaluated and three intrinsic parameters; A, B and S were determined by mathematical model. The results attained were compared to find the optimized PVP molecular weight for FO membranes with desired performance. It was observed that FO membrane prepared with molecular weight PVP of 40 kDa exhibited excellent performance with low ICP, thus reduce the replacement of draw solute in FO application

Influence of Polyethersulfone substrate properties on the performance of thin film composite forward osmosis membrane: Effect of additive concentration, polymer concentration and casting thickness

This research seeks to optimize the impact of substrate parameters such as polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) additive concentration (3–11 wt%), polyethersulfone (PES) concentration (11–17 wt%), and casting thickness (100–250 μm) on the overall performances of (PES) thin film composite (TFC) FO membrane. Non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) method was used to fabricate the substrate membrane, which was then followed by the interfacial polymerization of m-phenylene diamine (MPD) in aqueous solution and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) in hexane-organic solvent to form the active polyamide (PA) layer. Analyses of contact angle, porosity, pore size, functional group, morphology, and surface roughness were performed on membrane substrates and TFC membrane. Membrane performance parameters such as water flux (Jw), reverse salt diffusion (RSD), and specific reverse flux (SRF) were evaluated for the fabricated TFC membranes using the FO filtration system (pure water as feed solution and NaCl as draw solution). In addition, the water permeability coefficient (A), the solute permeability coefficient (B), and the structural parameter (S) were computed mathematically. Optimized membranes were chosen using the specific reverse flux (SRF) as the principal performance indicator. The optimal membranes for each parameter were then evaluated for their antifouling and rejection properties using humic acid (HA) solution. Among the optimized membranes, 15%PES/5%PVP/100 μm membrane exhibited the best performance with high rejection and antifouling properties towards HA

Photocatalytic degradation of palm oil mill secondary effluent

Palm oil industry is one of the industries that has major disposal problem in disposing the lignocelluloic biomass such as oil palm trunks (OPT), oil palm fronds (OPF), empty fruits bunches (EFB) and palm pressed fibres (PPF), palm shells and palm oil mill effluent (POME) [1]. Amongst all waste produced, POME is the most difficult waste to treat due to its high volume generated [2]. POME consists of 95-96% water, 0.6-0.7% of oil and 4-5% and total solid. Although it was said that POME is nontoxic, however the abundance of POME in water stream could lead to oxygen depletion in water stream as POME contains high amount of nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), and calcium (Ca) which later on could lead to plant growth in aquatic region. POME also consists of sterilizer condensate, separator sludge and hydrocyclone (DOE 1999). The treatment of POME generally undergo ponding system, open tank digester and extended aeration system, or closed anaerobic digester and land application system. Palm oil mill secondary effluent (POMSE) is the result of treatment of POME and is characterized by having a thick, brownish color and bad odor wastewater. Although POME was claimed to be treated with one of the systems, several studies showed that the POMSE still exceed the standard discharge limit set by both Department of Environment (DOE) Malaysia and Environment Quality Act (EQA) 197

Optical band gap and photoluminescence studies of Eu3+-doped zinc silicate derived from waste rice husks

In this study, investigation on photoluminescence and optical properties of europium doped zinc silicate (Zn2SiO4:Eu3+) glass ceramics derived from white rice husk ash as potential silica source have been done. Undoped and 3 wt. % of europium doped zinc silicate were prepared by solid state method and sintered at 600–1000 °C for 2 h. XRD analysis revealed the phase formation of amorphous, α or β-Zn2SiO4:Eu3+ phases of the glass and glass ceramic samples. FESEM results show the samples were irregular in shapes but well connected and formed large grain crystallites as sintering temperatures increases. The optical band gap values for undoped samples are increasing from 2.97 eV to 3.39 eV respectively. Meanwhile, the optical band gap values for 3 wt. % Eu3+ doped samples decrease from 4.14 eV to 2.62 eV and increase again to 3.71 eV as sintering temperature increases. PL analysis concludes that the red emission exhibited corresponding to 5D0 → 7F2 electron configuration at 612 nm while excitation spectra was found at 400 nm attributed to 7F0 → 5L6 transition. As conclusion, Eu3+ doped Zn2SiO4 glasses has potential as glass host phosphor which can be used for optical devices such as plasma display panels (PDPs) and cathode ray tubes

A virtual screening approach for identifying plants with anti H5N1 neuraminidase activity

Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic and occasional drug-resistant influenza strains have highlighted the need to develop novel anti-influenza therapeutics. Here, we report computational and experimental efforts to identify influenza neuraminidase inhibitors from among the 3000 natural compounds in the Malaysian-Plants Natural-Product (NADI) database. These 3000 compounds were first docked into the neuraminidase active site. The five plants with the largest number of top predicted ligands were selected for experimental evaluation. Twelve specific compounds isolated from these five plants were shown to inhibit neuraminidase, including two compounds with IC50 values less than 92 μM. Furthermore, four of the 12 isolated compounds had also been identified in the top 100 compounds from the virtual screen. Together, these results suggest an effective new approach for identifying bioactive plant species that will further the identification of new pharmacologically active compounds from diverse natural-product resources

Exploring Eu3+-doped ZnO-SiO2 glass derived by recycling renewable source of waste rice husk for white-LEDs application

In this work, zinc silicate glass system (ZnO-SiO2) doped with various europium ion (Eu3+) concentrations derived from white rice husk ash (WRHA) were synthesized using melt and quench method. All samples determined by X-ray diffractometer (XRD) showed amorphous phase structure. The surface micrographs detected by Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) showed Eu3+ addition had reduced the sample’s porosity. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) revealed the presence of Eu3+ ions had weakened the absorption peaks of SiO4. Meanwhile, ultra-violet visible spectroscopy (UV–vis) showed the absorption edges were shifted towards higher wavelength with Eu3+ addition. Band gap values were increased from 2.97 eV to 4.23 eV when Eu3+ dopant increased but decreased back to 3.98 eV at highest concentration. Photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) analysis showed intense red emission at 600 nm corresponding to 5D0 → 7F2 transition were enhanced by Eu3+ doping. Hence, their luminescent properties are useful for optical device such as white light emitting diodes

Addition of ZnO nanoparticles on waste rice husk as potential host material for red-emitting phosphor

In this research, influence of zinc oxide (ZnO) addition in silica matrix to produce zinc silicate glass system (ZnO–SiO2) derived from white rice husk ash (WRHA) have been investigated via solid state method. The 90 wt percentage (wt.%) of silica content in WRHA has been proved by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). Hence, the compositions of (ZnOx–WRHA1-x) glass system were varied by x = 0.50, 0.55, 0.60, 0.65 and 0.70 wt% to study their structural and optical behaviors. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns revealed that with the addition of ZnO in the silica matrix, the broad halo peaks became weaker and caused a few crystalline peaks to appear. Meanwhile, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed that absorption bands related to SiO4 unit group are weakened as amount of ZnO increased. This is due to the increase of non-bridging oxygen's (NBO's) formation in the glass structure which also affects the absorbance measurement by ultra violet visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis) to be shifted towards higher in wavelength as the composition of ZnO increases. Lattice distortion due to NBO's formation had decreased the band gap values from 4.28 eV to 3.95 eV. Overall, 60:40 ratio of ZnO against WRHA was selected as the best ratio to produce zinc silicate (Zn2SiO4) glass ceramics. Lastly, the characterization of europium (Eu3+) doped Zn2SiO4 glass ceramics with subject to sintering temperature also has been studied to prove that this material can be a great potential host matrix for red-emitting phosphor

A Virtual Screening Approach For Identifying Plants with Anti H5N1 Neuraminidase Activity

Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic and occasional drug-resistant influenza strains have highlighted the need to develop novel anti-influenza therapeutics. Here, we report computational and experimental efforts to identify influenza neuraminidase inhibitors from among the 3000 natural compounds in the Malaysian-Plants Natural-Product (NADI) database. These 3000 compounds were first docked into the neuraminidase active site. The five plants with the largest number of top predicted ligands were selected for experimental evaluation. Twelve specific compounds isolated from these five plants were shown to inhibit neuraminidase, including two compounds with IC₅₀ values less than 92 μM. Furthermore, four of the 12 isolated compounds had also been identified in the top 100 compounds from the virtual screen. Together, these results suggest an effective new approach for identifying bioactive plant species that will further the identification of new pharmacologically active compounds from diverse natural-product resources