Production of Spray-Dried Coconut Milk Powder

The production of coconut milk powder could be carried out, even though the fat content of fresh coconut milk is above 30%. The spray drying process was used with an air inlet and outlet temperatures of 190°C and 90°C respectively. Additives were found to be necessary and suitable ones identified in this study are skim milk and dextrin in the range of10% -15% w/w and 5% - 7% w/w respectively. The product obtained resembles cow milk and can easily be reconstituted with water either at 30°C or 100°C giving a homogeneous solution. The spray dried powder is stable during storage in polyethylene package under room conditions even after three months, giving a satisfactory reconstituted product

The displaced plantation workers: A case study of rubber estates in Kedah

Eviction of plantation workers, due to the development of estate lands and changing land ownerships, has been a big and unresolved issue. Many plantation areas have been sold to make way either for housing projects or industrial sites. When an estate is sold, the estate workers lose not only their jobs, but also their homes and additional sources of income from farming and animal husbandry. They are also entitled to receive termination benefits. The majority of these displaced workers have skills only in the agricultural sector and many of them are old aged. The main objective of this study was to analysis the socioeconomic situations of the displaced workers due to the development of the rubber estate lands in Kedah. The snowball sampling method was used to identify the respondents. The survey was based on 11 estates and 349 ex-workers of these estates were interviewed. The areas of this study were in Sungai Petani and Kulim. The results clearly showed that the majority of the evicted workers migrated to locations that were on average around 3km from their original estates. The majority of them worked with private sector companies upon their evictions. However, many of them are still in their estate houses, waiting for better compensation to be paid in the form of new houses elsewhere. It is suggested in this paper that the compensation should be in terms of home ownership, provided jointly by the government and firms. There have also been some suggestions to solve the issue through programmes provided by the Ministry of Agriculture

Zero discharge strategy for the palm oil mill

Currently palm oil mill effluent (POME) - the main waste stream from the palm oil mills - is treated mainly to remove its high biological oxygen demand (BOD) in order to meet discharge standards prior to disposal. The most common treatment system presently employed for POME is the anaerobic ponding system whereby the biogas produced is released into the atmosphere, causing environmental pollution due to the greenhouse effect. However, with biogas capture projects as suggested in the Economic Transformation Programme under Palm Oil Sector EPP5, in each mill the scrubbed biogas can be fed into a gas engine to generate easily 1MW of green renewable electricity for grid connection. The project qualifies for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), with a payback period about 5 years. With the availability of this constant energy, the treated POME with a low BOD which is conventionally discharged can be aerated for recycling into the mill. The anaerobic sludge can be co-composted with biomass such as empty fruit bunch to produce organic compost. With these strategies in place, the palm oil mills can improve their operations towards achieving a zero discharge system

Combined pretreatment using alkaline hydrothermal and ball milling to enhance enzymatic hydrolysis of oil palm mesocarp fiber

Hydrothermal pretreatment of oil palm mesocarp fiber was conducted in tube reactor at treatment severity ranges of log Ro = 3.66–4.83 and partial removal of hemicellulose with migration of lignin was obtained. Concerning maximal recovery of glucose and xylose, 1.5% NaOH was impregnated in the system and subsequent ball milling treatment was employed to improve the conversion yield. The effects of combined hydrothermal and ball milling pretreatments were evaluated by chemical composition changes by using FT-IR, WAXD and morphological alterations by SEM. The successful of pretreatments were assessed by the degree of enzymatic digestibility of treated samples. The highest xylose and glucose yields obtained were 63.2% and 97.3% respectively at cellulase loadings of 10 FPU/g-substrate which is the highest conversion from OPMF ever reported

Enrichment of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) bacteria for short start-up of the anammox process: a review

The application of the anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) reaction in a biological nitrogen removal system to treat wastewater has become of great interest since its discovery. The anammox reaction is performed by anammox bacteria that belong to the Planctomycete phylum. The reaction occurs in the presence of ammonium using nitrite as the substrate under anaerobic conditions. However, the bacteria have an extremely slow growth rate and stringent metabolic conditions that cause difficulty in culturing and applying the system for wastewater treatment. Anammox enrichment has a long start-up period for the anammox process that hinders researchers using laboratory and full-scale systems for the first time. Many attempts have been made to culture anammox to establish a successful anammox culture with a shorter start-up period for the anammox reaction and high nitrogen removal activity. This paper reviews previous studies on anammox enrichment with emphasis on (i) inoculum selection, (ii) enrichment techniques and (iii) factors influencing anammox enrichment. This review will assist researchers in planning and designing an appropriate anammox enrichment. The findings should widen the application of anammox in biological nitrogen removal systems for nitrogenous wastewater

Indigenous cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic bacteria enhanced rapid co-composting of lignocellulose oil palm empty fruit bunch with palm oil mill effluent anaerobic sludge.

The composting of lignocellulosic oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) with continuous addition of palm oil mill (POME) anaerobic sludge which contained nutrients and indigenous microbes was studied. In comparison to the conventional OPEFB composting which took 60-90. days, the rapid composting in this study can be completed in 40. days with final C/N ratio of 12.4 and nitrogen (2.5%), phosphorus (1.4%), and potassium (2.8%), respectively. Twenty-seven cellulolytic bacterial strains of which 23 strains were closely related to Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus firmus, Thermobifida fusca, Thermomonospora spp., Cellulomonas sp., Ureibacillus thermosphaericus, Paenibacillus barengoltzii, Paenibacillus campinasensis, Geobacillus thermodenitrificans, Pseudoxanthomonas byssovorax which were known as lignocellulose degrading bacteria and commonly involved in lignocellulose degradation. Four isolated strains related to Exiguobacterium acetylicum and Rhizobium sp., with cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic activities. The rapid composting period achieved in this study can thus be attributed to the naturally occurring cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic strains identified

International Nuclear Information System (INIS): Malaysia’s contribution for nuclear knowledge preservation

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an organization under the United Nations (UN), which serves to disseminate accurate information about the nuclear matters.In accordance with its role, an International Nuclear Information System (INIS) was established in 1970 to provide opportunities for member countries under the auspices of the IAEA to share information, expertise and knowledge, particularly in the nuclear field. Malaysia became a member since 1978, and the first country's input was posted in 1980. INIS activities are supervised by liaison officers (LO) to monitor and oversee matters relating to INIS management. INIS has developed 49 subject matters (subject heading) and LO needs to prepare, review and compile the records before sending to INIS database at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Material received will be processed before distributing to all IAEA member states through INIS website or CD to countries that subscribe to it.This paper focused on how Malaysia contributes to development of INIS and to promote Malaysian about the existence of this database that not only focused on nuclear science but also related technologies

Effect of Partial Rootzone Drying (PRD) on growth, Water Use Efficiency (WUE) and yield of tomatoes grown in soilless culture

An investigation was carried out at the Department of Crop Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) to examine the effect of PRD using soilless media, a mixture of 70% coconut coir dust and peat (3:2 respectively) amended with 30% rice straw compost. Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill cv Red Rock) plants were exposed to two different water treatments, which was either well-watered (control) or partially irrigated on half of the roots (PRD). Reduction in water availability in the media with PRD treatment caused a significant decrease in leaf expansion, leaf area and stomatal conductance. Proline was significantly increase with PRD. There was no significant reduction in dry matter partitioning and yield between well-watered and PRD-treated plants. Water use efficiency also was significantly increased with PRD

Ball milling pretreatment of oil palm biomass for enhancing enzymatic hydrolysis

Oil palm biomass, namely empty fruit bunch and frond fiber, were pretreated using a planetary ball mill. Particle sizes and crystallinity index values of the oil palm biomass were significantly reduced with extended ball mill processing time. The treatment efficiency was evaluated by the generation of glucose, xylose, and total sugar conversion yields from the pretreatment process compared to the amount of sugars from raw materials. Glucose and xylose contents were determined using high-performance liquid chromatography. An increasing trend in glucose and xylose yield as well as total sugar conversion yield was observed with decreasing particle size and crystallinity index. Oil palm frond fiber exhibited the best material yields using ball milling pretreatment with generated glucose, xylose, and total sugar conversion yields of 87.0, 81.6, and 85.4 %, respectively. In contrast, oil palm empty fruit bunch afforded glucose and xylose of 70.0 and 82.3 %, respectively. The results obtained in this study showed that ball mill-treated oil palm biomass is a suitable pretreatment method for high conversion of glucose and xylose

Waste-to-wealth through biotechnology for profit, people and planet

As part of business-as-usual, all industries and social communities create waste. Traditionally, wastes are considered as a problem and financial burden for the industry and community, since wastes have to be managed or treated for safe discharge or ultimate disposal. Currently, organic and agro-industrial wastes and biomass are increasingly regarded as additional income streams and potential raw materials for the generation of value-added products. In Malaysia, agro-industrial biomass has been widely used for heat and power generation for internal consumption, mainly in the palm oil and wood-based industries. This is attributed to the high demand of energy from these industries and the simplicity of the conversion technologies involved compared to that required for biological conversion. Moreover, this approach is another method of waste disposal for the industry. Power generation using boiler systems in all the palm oil mills in Malaysia is the best example, whereby electricity is generated through the simple combustion of palm kernel shell and mesocarp fiber. However, this thermal conversion of agro-industrial biomass represents low-end utilization of biomass. Moreover, oil palm empty fruit bunches which are produced in huge quantities are still very much underutilized. Our research group has embarked on comprehensive international and industrial research collaborations to enhance the technology and potential of agro-industrial biomass utilization in Malaysia, focusing mainly on palm oil -based residues, which are automatically collected as part of business-as-usual at the palm oil mills, for the production of new biotechnological products. Among the waste-to-wealth biotechnology products are biogas (methane) for renewable energy, organic acid feedstocks, biodegradable plastics, biocompost, biohydrogen and cellulosic bioethanol. The main obstacles in the development of industries based on biotechnology are complexity of the technology and economic feasibility. As industrial and environmental biotechnologists in a developing country, we strive to develop appropriate technologies to raise the value chain of biomass from fuel to feed,fiber, food and fine chemicals. We incorporate the use of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol in realizing the sustainable biomass industry in Malaysia, encompassing economic, social and environmental benefits (the 3Ps - profit, people and planet). Apart from being a good strategy for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the CDM also provides a more attractive business plan to utilize biomass as renewable resources to generate new bioproducts and additional income streams for the palm oil industry