Removal of Nickel(II) ion from Industrial Waste Water employing Ion Exchange Process

The presence of Nickel (II) ion in the wastewater from the metal industry can be unfavourable to living species. Nickel ion in the water caused damaged to human being as well as to the environment. Ion exchange technology was chosen to be applied in this study to treat nickel ion and enhance the quality of the wastewater from the industry. Ion exchange is a reversible chemical reaction wherein ion from the solution is exchanged for a similarly charged ion attached to the resins. In this project, the removal of Nickel (II) ion from wastewater using a strong acid and strong base resin in fixed beds column will be investigated. The purpose of the project is to determine the optimum condition for the removal of metal ions from the waste water solution. The experiments were performed under different pH values (3, 5,and 7) and different pollutant’s initial concentrations(1.8, 2.8, and 3.8 g Ni/L). Besides, the effect of regeneration of the resin is conducted and evaluated. The result of the removal efficiency and rate of removal is shown in the breakthrough curves and the kinetic for the process is calculated. The continuous study showed that the exchange isotherm is well fitted by the Thomas Model. Atomic Adsorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) is used to measure the Nickel ion concentration to be compared against the environmental limit. The effect of waste water treatment to the characterization of the resins is determined by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). Results from this project can help to design an appropriate heavy metal removal technique by using ion exchange process in order to minimize the negative impacts caused by industrial waste water

Determination of direction factor, Md for MS1553:2002 wind loading for building structure

Current records from the Malaysia natural disaster studies show that windstorm -causes damages to building. Even though Malaysia has developed 'own code of -practice on wind loading for building structure to support MalaysianStandard -in 2002, ongoing research is still being carried out to update the data in the codes Currently, in Malaysia is refer to Malaysian Standard, MS 15532002 that do not have -the value -of-direction factor, 'Ma. Most -of'design methods in Malaysia are not considering-the effect of wind direction.. .Significantly; .buil'ding orientation on design stage can reduce the wind load impact. Wind speeds data from eights Meteorological Station over the peninsular Malaysia are used in this study. 'Extreme wind speed are -examined by -statistical 'technique -namely -Gumbel method. The 'extreme wind 'speed -data are considered into Iwo conditions, i) Non-Direction Method,(ii) Directional' Method. By using this method extreme wind can be determined at 8 stations in Peninsular 'Malaysia Which are Kuantan, KuaiaTerengganu, 'Mersing, Senal, Subang, -Bayan -Lepas, 'chuping, and Melaka. -From -the 'result, -the 'direction -factor, NTd station was found and the values are recommending in MS 1553:2002. The results also have shown that, at some direction of extreme wind predicted stronger than non direction method. Furthermore 'these values can give guideline 'to The designer to 'orientate -the -building -in 'facing 'high 'wind -speed. It is also -can 'reduce 'factor failure due 10 the extreme wind in Malaysia

Nano flat sheet membrane filtration using silica sugarcane bagasse as additive for leachate treatment / Hamizah Mokhtar

Membrane technology using ultrafiltration and nanofiltration membrane process had proven to be successful in treating physical and organic impurities from water and wastewater. However, this technology has it challenge due to its higher selectivity. The selectivity of membrane influenced by the materials used to fabricate a membrane. Recently, additive was added into membrane formulation to improve hydrophilicity, membrane charge and surface roughness. Silica is one of the additives in membrane formulation that has capability to resist chemical attack and high thermal stability. Silica can be extracted from various sources such as alkoxysilane, quartz, sand, silicon tetrachloride and tetraethyl orthosilicate. However, different types of silica produce different effects of membrane characteristics and performance. Therefore, this thesis is focused on the exploration of new membrane materials to develop a new flat sheet nanofiltration membrane using silica extracted from sugarcane bagasse as additives. The process involved in this study includes extraction of silica from sugarcane bagasse, characterization of silica sugarcane bagasse, dope formulation and fabrication using silica sugarcane bagasse, and characterization and performance of the newly developed nano flat sheet silica sugarcane silica bagasse additive membrane (SSAM). Morphology via Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) for SSAM showed that the addition of silica enhanced the macrovoid formation in sub layer of membrane and improve interconnectivity of the pore, hence, increase flux. High silica concentration increases solution viscosity and strong interaction with polymer able to delay dope precipitation and cause decreasing in size of pores, thus, increase salt rejection. Silica sugarcane bagasse is hydrophilic which can attract large amount of water which is 46 L/m2hr to pass through membrane and increased salt rejection from 65.80% to 77.50%. This SSAM with weight percent 21 wt.%:71 wt.%:5 wt.%:3 wt.% of PSF:DMAc:PVP:Silica showed excellent performance in combination of aeration and membrane system for leachate treatment with the result of approximately 100% rejection of Copper (Cu), Chromium (Cr), Zinc (Zn), Nickel (Ni), Cadmium (Cd) and Iron (Fe). In conclusion, silica sugarcane bagasse is comparable to be as an alternative and sustainable source of membrane material which is additive. New membrane formulation determined from this research work tailored for leachate treatment, 21 wt.%:71 wt.%:5 wt.%:3 wt.% of PSF:DMAc:PVP:Silica is able to discharged treated leachate effluent that satisfy the Standards A requirement of Environment Quality Act (EQA) 2009

The impact of financial integration on banking system efficiency in ASEAN countries

Financial integration is a situation in which financial markets of countries around the world are closely linked together through the process of banking deregulation, capital account liberalization and financial openness. In theory, the liberalized financial system would stimulate higher competition, increase the flows of funds into the domestic banking system and improve the efficiency of the financial intermediation process. The objective of the study is to determine the impact of financial integration on the banking system efficiency for five major economies in ASEAN countries. This study employs the unbalanced panel data for five selected ASEAN countries, which are Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand between the periods of 2004 to 2014. The dependent variables for this study is banking system efficiency which is represented by the bank net interest margin to total earning assets ratio, the main independent variable is the financial integration and the control variables are inflation, economic growth rate, income group and real interest rate. The study discovers the positive relationship between financial integration and banking system efficiency for five ASEAN countries. In addition, the study also finds the positive link between inflation and banking system efficiency while the higher and middle income countries have a better efficiency performance as compared to the lower and middle income group. In contrary, the economic growth rate is found to have a negative relationship with the banking system efficiency. In addition, the result argues that the real interest rate is not one of the factors that determine the banking sector efficiency. For the robustness model, the bank overhead costs to total assets ratio (operational cost) is employed as the dependent variables to measure the banking system efficiency. Despite of using the bank overhead costs to total assets ratio as the dependent variable, the findings support the earlier conclusion that the financial integration, inflation and income group enhance the banking sector efficiency. Therefore, these findings would assist the policy makers in assessing the effectiveness of the current regulations on the financial integration

Employee’s satisfaction among expatriates in SCOPE International Sdn Bhd / Nur Hamizah Rusli

The research that has been done by the researcher is about Employee’s Satisfaction among expatriates in SCOPE International Sdn Bhd. In this research, the researcher will discuss several factors that contributed to the employee’s satisfaction in terms of their salary, working conditions and relationship between their colleagues as well. These three factors will affect employee’s satisfaction towards their job. The reason why the researcher chooses this topic is because, they want to see the correlation between those factors and employee’s satisfaction towards their job. Either it give a big impact or not to the organization. In this research, the sample would be all of the foreign workers in SCOPE which have five department including Trade, Securities, FMO and CRC. In a simple random sample ('SRS') of a given size, all such subsets of the frame are given an equal probability. Finally the researcher came out with result that failed to eject amount of salary and the researcher have to reject Ho office environment and relationship between colleagues

An inquiry-based simulation-supported approach to assist students' learning of basic electric circuits

Important aspects of teaching and learning are to understand what difficulties students have, why they face these difficulties, and how to help them overcome these difficulties. This research investigated the alternative conceptions that students hold pertaining to the concepts of open circuits and short circuits in a Basic Electric Circuits course. Data gathered from different sources including interviews, tests and documents were analyzed to characterized students’ conceptual learning difficulties. The researcher adapted a diagnostic instrument that consists of 12 multiple choice items for the pretest and posttest. The participants were 80 first-year students enrolled in a Diploma in Electrical Engineering programme at one local public university; where 47 students constituted the treatment group and 33 students constituted the control group. The pretest was administered to both groups during the first week of the semester. An inquiry-based simulation-supported approach session was conducted with the treatment group after the pretest. The inquiry-based simulation-supported approach incorporated predict-observe-explain (POE) tasks. The extent to which this approach can assist students’ in developing conceptual understanding was investigated. Students’ verbal responses during the circuit simulation using Multisim software were recorded and analyzed. The posttest was administered during the final week of the semester to both groups. Research findings are presented in two parts. The first part is a quantitative analysis of students’ performance on the pretest and posttest. The second part is a qualitative analysis of students’ documents and interviews to identify their alternative conceptions. Findings reveal that the inquiry-based simulation-supported approach positively impacted students’ conceptual understanding. The advantages and disadvantages of applying the inquiry-based simulation-supported approach in Basic Electric Circuits are discussed