Extraction Of Tannin From Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch As A Rust Deactivator.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of reaction between rust and rust deactivator obtained from oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) powder

Electroless plating of moisture-curable polyurethane undercoating films

The compatibility of using moisture-curable polyurethane (MCPU) system as a thin undercoating layer with electroless plating process was evaluated. The characteristics of the MCPU before and after chemical etching treatment were analyzed using atomic force microscope (AFM), scanning electrode microscope (SEM), contact-angle measurements, and (Fourier-Transform Infrared) FTIR spectroscopy. We found that surface morphology and roughness of the MCPU is affected by curing period and etching times. A proper combination of curing period and etching times are critical for obtaining a fully metallized surface. All MCPU samples that were etched for 15 min show poor plating performance due to surface damage caused by mild etching treatment. A standard pull-off testing method (ASTM 4541) was used to evaluate the adhesion strength of nickel–MCPU. Only samples that were postcured for 4 days show influence of surface roughness on adhesion strength. On average, samples that were postcured for 7 days before electroless plating showed better adhesion of nickel–MCPU compared with samples that were postcured for 2 or 4 days. The results show that MCPU system can be used as a thin undercoating layer for electroless plating. It also offers smooth metal–polymer interface and therefore has the potential to be exploited for use in many electroless plating applications including in the decorative such as ornaments and display items and also in electronic industries

Taguchi and BEM Analyses on the Productivity Performance of an Oil Reservoir

The application of Taguchi Robust Design Technique (TRDT) coupled with the Boundary Element Menthod (BEM) in analyzing the productivity performance of an oil reservoir is presented in this paper. Several reservoir rock and reservoir fluid properties; i.e. permeability, thickness, porosity and viscosity, were choosen in this study. The BEM allows the overall simulation of reservoir performance to be made; whereas the used of TRDT allows us to rank the most influencing factor (property) that affects the productivity performance of the reservoir. Numerical values obtained from the BEM analysis will be used as input data for the TRDT statistical analysis. Result indicated that oil viscosity is the most important factor that affects the productivity performance of the oil reservoir followed by the thickness of the pay zone, the rock permeability and the rock porosity. Results of this study can be used by reservoir engineer in making the right choice of Enhance Oil Recovery techniques that is the most suitable for the reservoir

Persepsi industri hospitaliti terhadap golongan pekerja berkeperluan khas (masalah pendengaran)

Kerjaya merupakan salah satu keperluan bagi setiap manusia samada golongan normal mahupun golongan berkeperluan khas. Kerjaya merupakan laluan bagi manusia untuk mencari sumber pendapatan untuk memastikan kelangsungan hidup. Namun, terdapat isu berkaitan pengangguran terhadap golongan berkeperluan khas. Oleh itu kajian ini dilaksanakan untuk mengenal pasti persepsi industri hospitaliti terhadap golongan berkeperluan khas (masalah pendengaran) serta mengenal pasti cabaran yang dihadapi oleh industri dalam pengambilan pekerja berkeperluan khas (masalah pendengaran). Selain itu kajian ini juga dijalankan untuk mengenal pasti keperluan kriteria yang diharapkan oleh industri hospitaliti. Kajian ini melibatkan 28 syarikat di bawah sektor hospitaliti yang terdapat di sekitar Batu Pahat dan Muar, Johor. Seramai 88 orang majikan yang terdiri daripada pengurus, penyelia, ketua-ketua bahagian dan pekerja yang terlibat dengan pekerja berkeperluan khas (masalah pendengaran) adalah responden dalam kajian ini. Kajian ini menggunakan borang soal selidik sebagai instrument kajian. Data yang diperoleh dianalisis menggunakan kaedah deskriptif menggunakan perisian SPSS (Statistic Package for the Social Science) versi 16.0. Hasil dapatan menunjukkan tahap penerimaan industri hospitaliti terhadap golongan pekerja berkeperluan khas (masalah pendengaran) berada pada tahap sederhana

Techniques And Parameters Investigations On Crosslinked Rubber Foam Formations.

Single Stage. Heat Tranfer and Heat and Chill techniques were applied to determine suitable methods for crosslinked rubber foam formation. Various parameters such as expansion temperature and blowing agent concentration were also investigated

N,N′-Bis(3β-acet­oxy-5α-cholest-6-yl­idene)hydrazine

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, C58H96N2O4, contains two crystallographically independent mol­ecules. All cyclohexane rings are in chair conformations, while the furan ring is in an envelope conformation in one mol­ecule and a twist conformation in the other. Two acetaldehyde and one isobutane groups are disordered over two orientations with refined site occupancies of 0.940 (4):0.060 (4) and 0.791 (7):0.209 (7), respectively. In the crystal, mol­ecules are stacked along the a axis through van der Waals inter­actions

Microwave technique of measuring moisture content in the tuber of Dioscorea hispida using monopole sensor

This paper describes the application of a monopole sensor to determine the moisture content in the tuber of Dioscorea hispida, based on magnitude and phase of reflection coefficient and admittance measurement. This preliminary work is to study relationship between microwave and alkaloid dioscorine of the tuber of Dioscorea hispida. The most widely used standard technique, which is the standard oven drying method, is time consuming and only suitable for laboratory experiment. As an alternative, measurement of moisture content in the tuber of Dioscorea hispida using microwave techniques is proposed. The measurement setup consists of a monopole antenna and a FieldFox RF Analyzer N9912A. This system utilizes a monopole sensor to transmit the microwave signal in the tuber of Dioscorea hispida sample and display the magnitude and phase of the reflection coefficient on the FieldFox. The admittance, on the other hand, is derived from the reflection coefficient measurement. The relationship between the magnitude, phase shift, admittance and moisture contents were studied. The relationships were used to obtain an empirical formula which was used to predict the moisture content in the tuber of Dioscorea hispida

Rapid Determination of Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs in Aquatic Matrices by Two-phase Micro-electrodriven Membrane Extraction Combined with Liquid Chromatography

Two-phase micro-electrodriven membrane extraction (EME) procedure for the pre-concentration of selected non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in aquatic matrices was investigated. Agarose film was used as interface between donor and acceptor phase in EME which allowed for selective extraction of the analytes prior to high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection. Charged analytes were transported from basic aqueous sample solution through agarose film into 1-octanol as an acceptor phase at 9 V potential. Response surface methodology in conjunction with the central composite design showed good correlations between extraction time and applied voltage (R 2 > 0.9358). Under optimized extraction conditions, the method showed good linearity in the concentration range of 0.5-500 μg L -1 with coefficients of determination, r 2 ≥ 0.9942 and good limits of detection (0.14-0.42 μg L -1) and limits of quantification (0.52-1.21 μg L -1). The results also showed high enrichment factors (62-86) and good relative recoveries (72-114%) with acceptable reproducibilities (RSDs ≤ 7.5% n = 3). The method was successfully applied to the determination of NSAIDs from tap water and river water samples. The proposed method proved to be rapid, simple and requires low voltage and minute amounts of organic solvent, thus environmentally friendly

Crosslinking of polyolefin foam. III. Increasing low density polyethylene foam production efficiency by incorporation of polyfunctional monomers

The effect of introducing polyfunctional monomers into dicumyl peroxide (DCP) crosslinking systems for low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is considered. Effects are characterised as a function of relative concentrations in solid, melt and foamed states. The monomers selected were diallyl phthalate (DALP), trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate (TMPTMA) and triallyl cyanurate (TAC). It is shown that TAC promotes network formation more efficiently than TMPTMA and DALP allowing a considerable reduction in DCP concentration to attain a specific gel content. A TAC concentration of approximately 0.5% was most cost-effective. Crosslinking promotion efficiency was shown to be in the order TAC > DALP > TMPTMA. Polyfunctional monomers containing allyl groups appeared to be significantly more effective than methacrylates and the efficiency improved with increasing functionality. Compression moulding of LDPE foams of similar density showed that the cycle time could be reduced using a DCP/TAC system compared with DCP alone

Experimental analysis on the effect of cooling surface area and flow rate for water cooled photovoltaic module

Application of water spray or water flow on the surface of photovoltaic (PV) modules is one of the techniques used to increase efficiency. Main parameter that affect the performance by this technique is water flow rate and cooling surface are. However, there is less study focus on those parameters. Thus, the objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of water-cooled surface area and water flow rate on the temperature and power output of the PV. Orifices were used to create half-cooled and fully-cooled surface area for water to flow as cooling techniques while the hand valve was used to control the flow rate of water at 120 L/h, 180 L/h and 240 L/h flowing onto the panel. A solar simulator was constructed and used to provide 600 W/m2, 1,000 W/m2, and 1,200 W/m2 irradiance for the panel. The testing methodology consists of three different experiments for each irradiance level. It was found that more cooling surface area covered could significantly reduce temperature in any irradiance level, and fully-cooled module could keep the temperature at below 40 °C eventhough the irradiance was at 1,200 W/m2. In addition, the optimum flow rate also depends on the cooling surface area. Thus, there is a unique relation between cooling surface area and optimum flow rate. Thus, further investigation is needed on this relation