Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch Pulp Filled Polypropylene Composites Using Handsheet Making Concept

Tandan buah kosong (EFB) kelapa sawit daripada sisa pertanian dan serbuk polipropilena telah digunakan untuk membentuk bio-komposit dengan menggunakan konsep permbuatan kertas makmal. Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) from agriculture waste and polypropylene (PP) powder were used to form a bio-composite by using handsheet making concept and named as handsheet composit

Characterization Of Hydrophobic Seaweed Film Reinforced With Kenaf Bast Cellulose Nanofibers

Plastics are durable and resistant to biodegradation processes in the natural environment. Intensive researches have been conducted in past to develop the film from the natural source. The seaweed-based film showed excellent functional properties, so there is a need to investigate its performance and impact on surroundings to determine its longevity and harmfulness. Using kenaf nanocellulose as filler reinforcement is well known to increase the mechanical properties of films. The hydrophilicity nature of the seaweed can be countered by silane treatment using triethoxymethyl silane to give hydrophobicity properties to the film. The nanocellulose based seaweed film were prepared using solvent casting process. In this research project, study on physicochemical properties of the biodegradable film and its performance has been completed. This study include the understanding of the mechanical, physical, chemical, thermal, morphology, biodegradability, and hydrophilicity properties of the film. Detail study has been carried out to identify the optimum measure of silane surface treatment on seaweed films hydrophobicity. Different amounts of nanocellulose incorporated within the seaweed film also has been studied and compared to one another. The rate of water interaction with the seaweed films were measure by calculate the weight increase with respect to time

Prediction of groundwater contaminants from cattle farm using Visual MODFLOW

Livestock operation activities such as cleaning operation, feeding, milking and manure disposal are potential sources of contaminants into nearby surface and groundwater. In this study, the number of wastes generated from a cattle farm in Ladang 16 UPM, Serdang Selangor was estimated. Two monitoring wells were constructed at the site for groundwater quality monitoring assessment. The concentration of pollutants such as Potassium, Nitrate, and Copper was used in the simulation as an initial waste state. The simulation was conducted using Visual MODFLOW Software to predict the contaminants in groundwater. The aim was to predict the concentration of the pollutants distributed in groundwater and surface water sources in 365 days. Results of MODFLOW simulation showed that the flow of groundwater was in the direction towards the pond. The concentrations of Potassium, Nitrate, and Copper were predicted to accumulate in the groundwater to the pond within a year but the values were still below the drinking water standard. The groundwater contaminants could be due to seepage from the manure storage basin through subsoil into the shallow aquifer

Diffusivity optimization of supercritical carbon dioxide extraction with co-solvent-ethanol from peanut skin

Peanut skin is a waste of industrial peanut butter that contains bioactive compound, which is used as antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory. Supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) extraction as green technology is applied to extract peanut skin oil. The aim of this study is to optimize the operational conditions of pressure, temperature, and percentage of co-solvent to obtain oil yield and diffusivity coefficient. Determination of diffusivity coefficient was needed to evaluate the mass transfer between solvent and solute. The operational conditions of SC-CO2 studied were different pressure (10, 20, 30 MPa), different temperature (40, 55, 70 °C and different co-solvent percentage (2.5, 5, and 7.5 % (Vethanol/Vsolvent)). The extraction time was 3 hours respectively. The optimum condition were 29.95 MPa, 40 °C and 6.49 % (Vethanol/Vsolvent) with 14.95 % yield and 8.47E-12 m2/s diffusivity coefficient

Extraction and identification of vitamin E from Pithecellobium Jiringan seeds using supercritical carbon dioxide

Pithecellobium Jiringan (P. Jiringan) is traditionally known as natural herb consists of several medicinal compounds (vitamin E). Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (SC-CO2) has been proven as potential method to extract interest compound from herbs. By altering pressure and temperature, the specific compound can be extracted. In this study, the SC-CO2 operating conditions are pressure (20.68 MPa to 55.16 MPa) and temperature (40°C to 80°C) in one hour extraction regime was used to extract vitamin E from P. jiringan. The quantification of vitamin E was analysed with Gas Chromatography Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS). The responses are overall oil yield and vitamin E yield. The overall oil yield was obtained at the highest condition of 55.16 MPa and 80°C with asymptotic yield of 8.06%. In contrast, the highest amount of vitamin E obtained is 0.0458mg/g sample (80.14 ppm) at the lowest extraction condition of 20.68 MPa and 40ᵒ

Development and characterization of bamboo fiber reinforced biopolymer films

A paradigm shift from petrochemical based packaging films for food packaging due to its non-renewable and waste disposal challenges has motivated research interest in development and characterization of biopolymer films. In this study, biocomposite films was prepared using bamboo fiber to reinforce modified and unmodified red seaweed SW Kappaphycus alvarezii, resulting in improved mechanical characteristics of 109.1 MPa tensile strength, 55.4 MPa Young's Modulus and 22.3% stretchability prior to breakage at the optimum value of 15% bamboo fibers loadings for unmodified biocomposite. There was general improvement in the fiber/matrix interface of the modified SW based composite films over the biopolymer films from unmodified SW bamboo reinforced films resulting in improved water vapour barrier as the fiber load increases up to Water vapour permeability value of 5.2 (g/s/m2/Pa)., while the contact angle as high as 91° was obtained. FTIR analysis validates the effective interaction of both the bamboo fibers and the seaweed matrix without any significant biochemical alteration of the seaweed within the frameworks of composite films. SEM characterization and contact angle measurement indicate that heterogeneous surface modification of the biopolymer film increases with the fiber loading. Results demonstrated the potential use of the renewable and biodegradable biopolymer composite films as packaging films useful in the food industry

The effect of fluid flow rate and extraction time in supercritical carbon dioxide

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is the best extraction method for high purity of charantin rich extract from Momordica charantia fruit. It is due to the unique characteristic of transport properties of supercritical fluid such as viscosity and diffusivity. Therefore, the focus of this study was to investigate the effects of carbon dioxide flow rate and extraction time on the Momordica charantia extract yield. The effects of carbon dioxide flow rate and extraction time were investigated using flow rate of 4, 6 and 8 mL/min with constant mean particle size of 0.3 mm. Different temperatures (45 and 65oC) and pressures (10 and 30 MPa) were used to investigate the effect between low and high operating condition. Based on the results, it showed that as the carbon dioxide flow rate increased to 8 mL/min, the extract yield increased to 3.698% at low operating condition. Furthermore, the time taken to reach plateau phase decreased from 150 min to 90 min. Therefore, it is recommended to use high flow rate in this study for highest extract yield in short time

Durian waste husks as an adsorbent in improving soaking water during the retting process of Piper nigrum l. (pepper berries)

The potential of raw durian husk and NaOH-modified durian husk as an adsorbent, using different doses, 0.5 g, 1.0 g, 1.5 g, and 2.0 g, is investigated to improve soaking water of pepper berries during the retting process. The surface area and the pore size of the durian husk were examined using Brunner Emmett and Teller analysis. The surface area of NaOH-modified durian husk is higher (2.33 m2/g) compared to the raw durian husk (1.51 m2/g). NaOH-modified durian husk has a higher porous structure than the raw durian husk, but both pore diameters are more than 50 nm, which is considered micropore raw material. The effect of the raw durian husk on pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD), dissolved oxygen (DO), and turbidity were compared to the NaOH-modified durian husk with different doses. The 2.0 g of NaOH-modified durian husk enhanced changes in the four parameters. The highest pH value using NaOH-modified durian husk was 6.10 ± 0.02, while turbidity and COD increased to 971.33 ± 1.15 NTU and 1984.67 ± 3.21 mg/L, respectively. The DO of NaOH-modified durian husk shows the lowest reduction to 1.49 mg/L with 2.0 g of NaOH-modified durian husk. The experimental data was best fitted with a first-order kinetic model. Durian husk treated with NaOH could be used as a potential adsorbent to enhance the soaking water for pepper berries

Preliminary study of ohmic heated hydro distillation for essential oil's plant extraction

Essential oils can be extracted by various extraction methods such as hydro distillation, steam distillation and solvent extraction. However, the application of ohmic heated hydro distillation has not been reported much elsewhere. In this study, ohmic heated hydro distillation of four types of plants; Cymbopogon atratus (Lemon grass), Cymbopogon nardus (Citronella grass), Backhousia Citriodora (Lemon myrtle) and Syzygium aromaticum (Clove) were studied in terms of yield and power consumption with electrical element heated hydro distillation. Generally, in most cases ohmic heated hydro distillation required less power and produce more essential oils yield for the same duration of extraction time. The results of the extraction process were presented

Ultrasonic pretreatment prior to Soxhlet extraction for essential oil from basil leaves (Ocimum basilicum L.)

The extraction of oil from basil leaves was investigated by using conventional Soxhlet extraction method and ultrasonic as a pre-treatment prior to Soxhlet extraction. The effects of two operating parameters on the oil extraction namely solvent to solid ratio and reaction time were investigated to optimize the processing conditions of conventional Soxhlet extraction for achieving maximum oil yield using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The optimum conditions were found at 5 hours, and a solvent to solid ratio of 1:33. The oil recovery from ultrasonic pretreatment prior to Soxhlet extraction under the same optimum parameters was compared. The yield of oil from samples underwent ultrasonic as a pretreatment was 4.14% while the conventional Soxhlet method yielded 6.24%. This finding is consistent with the evidence of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images showed that the treated samples were flakier and porous than untreated samples. Overall, this study has shown that treated samples via ultrasonic is incapable to increase the oil yield percentage compared to the conventional Soxhlet extraction method