Isolation and characterization of nanocrystalline cellulose from sugar palm fibres (Arenga Pinnata)

Cellulose was extracted from sugar palm fibres (Arenga pinnata) by conducting delignification and mercerization treatments. Subsequently, sugar palm nanocrystalline celluloses (SPNCCs) were isolated from the extracted cellulose with 60 wt% concentrated sulphuric acid. The chemical composition of sugar palm fibres were determined at different stages of treatment. Structural analysis was carried out by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Morphological analysis of extracted cellulose and isolated nanocrystalline cellulose (NCCs) was investigated by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The thermal stability of sugar palm fibres at different stages of treatment was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results showed that lignin and hemicellulose were removed from the extracted cellulose through the delignification and mercerization process, respectively. The isolated SPNCCs were found to have length and diameters of 130 ± 30 nm and 9 ± 1.96 nm, respectively

Trajectory Generation for Hip Rehabilitation Exoskeleton Using Trajectory

A walking rehabilitation exoskeleton robot is used for patient having walking difficulty to undergo walking therapy by wearing it on his lower body. If the rehabilitation is done directly by using  predefined normal gait, the patient can feel discomfort and may lead to painful therapy. This can also endangered the patient limb under therapy. Due to that reason, the patient will be discouraged and unmotivated to proceed with the therapy. This paper presents the hip trajectory generation by utilizing the patient current trajectory that morphs into the target trajectory by generating a sequence of gradually changing hip trajectories

The Creative Hawker Center for Small - Family - Business in Traditional Food of Surabaya

The Traditional Food Seller were mostly managed by the family, so they could be categorized as Family Businesses (FB). Furthermore, The FB in traditional food needed integrated business development strategy (related to marketing, business information system as well as architectural design). It was found during the research supported by UBCHEA in Surabaya. One of the strategies needed was to create the legal family food hawker center place quality. The strategy was in line with the Surabaya Municipality Government, The Cooperative and SME’s Business (Dinas Koperasi dan UMKM). A mini hawker center (consisting of 5 hawkers) was proposed in the roadside of the neighborhood collector. Additional to the center, a culinary park was provided onsite for catering the social interactions of Indonesian. The center was designed with creativity, but with low-cost local material such as brick, wood and bamboo. The design was also equipped with clean water, sanitations as well as food storages. All these would create positive branding and ensure sustainability of the hawker center

Mechanical and thermal properties of Kenaf reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)-natural rubber (NR) composites

In this paper, natural rubber (NR) was mixed with thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and kenaf as fillerreinforcement for the polymer composite. Mixing the material using the internal mixer and hot press machine was able toblend the material homogeneously. Investigation of the new polymer composite characterisation was carried out by thermalgravimetric analysis (TGA), along with tensile, flexural and impact tests. The TGA for the polymer composite achieved322⁰C before degradation and increase in tensile and impact strength with the increase of TPU in the polymer compositematrices were observed. The result indicated an improvement in tensile, flexural and impact strength for the kenaf filledTPU-NR composites. The mixing of kenaf fibre and TPU-NR polymer showed degradation that was gradually diminishingturned into ashes. TGA result showed all compositions of kenaf filled TPU-NR composites samples shared the same peaktemperature, being degraded at 600⁰C

An Approach to Data Utilization of The Lokomat Rehabilitation Robot

The use of exoskeleton robot wornon human body has been widely researchedand some have been commercialized. Lowerlimb exoskeleton robot worn in parallel onhuman lower body has found many applicationsespecially in the rehabilitation of human walkinggait. It is used as a robotic therapy in assistingpatient with walking difficulties to recover backhis walking ability. Using Lokomat rehabilitationrobot for therapy is not meant to guide the patientto walk only; but this robotic therapy systemhas the ability to record information signalsduring each therapy session. It is found out thatless research and attention has been given onthe methods that can utilize the recorded datawhich could be very useful and very informativefor physiotherapy study. Thus, the objective ofthis paper is to highlight the method to utilizethe recorded data from Lokomat physiotherapysession

Improvement of Harmonics Using Passive Harmonics Filter

Power quality problems are continuously increased and received a great attention due to the impacts on both utilities and consumers. The most frequently reported power quality problem is the harmonics. The aim of this project is to enhance the system performance under the load variation effect through desirable filter placement. In this project, two types of passive filter called single tuned and 3rd order C-type are studied. Load flow analysis is performed to calculate the load bus voltage and total harmonic distortion (THD) that determine the effectiveness of filter application. The work was simulated using Electrical Transient Analyzer Program (ETAP) and tested on two test systems namely the 4-bus and IEEE 14-bus. The results of this work show that single tuned filter is more effective in filtering the harmonic compared to the 3rd order C-type. Furthermore, installing the single tuned filter near to the source of harmonics produces a better result

Sugar Palm (Arenga Pinnata (Wurmb.) Merr) Cellulosic Fibre Hierarchy: A Comprehensive Approach From Macro To Nano Scale

Sugar palm (Arenga pinnata) fibre is considered as a waste product of the agricultural industry. This paper is investigating the isolation of nanofibrillated cellulose from sugar palm fibres produced by a chemo-mechanical approach, thus opening a new way to utilize waste products more efficiently. Chemical pre-treatments, namely delignification and mercerization processes, were initially involved to extract the sugar palm cellulose. Then, mechanical pre-treatment was performed by passing the sugar palm cellulose through a refiner to avoid clogging in the subsequent process of high pressurized homogenization. Nanofibrillated cellulose was then characterized by its chemical properties (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), physical morphological properties (i.e. scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis), and thermogravimetric analysis.The nanofibres were attained at 500 bar for 15 cycles with 92% yield. The results showed that the average diameter and length of the nanofibrillated cellulose were found to be 5.5 ± 1.0nm and several micrometres, respectively. They also displayed higher crystallinity (81.2%) and thermal stability compared to raw fibres, which served its purpose as an effective reinforcing material for use as bio-nanocomposites. The nanocellulose developed promises to be a very versatile material by having a huge potential in many applications, encompassing bio-packaging to scaffolds for tissue regeneratio

The forward physics facility at the high-luminosity LHC

High energy collisions at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produce a large number of particles along the beam collision axis, outside of the acceptance of existing LHC experiments. The proposed Forward Physics Facility (FPF), to be located several hundred meters from the ATLAS interaction point and shielded by concrete and rock, will host a suite of experiments to probe standard model (SM) processes and search for physics beyond the standard model (BSM). In this report, we review the status of the civil engineering plans and the experiments to explore the diverse physics signals that can be uniquely probed in the forward region. FPF experiments will be sensitive to a broad range of BSM physics through searches for new particle scattering or decay signatures and deviations from SM expectations in high statistics analyses with TeV neutrinos in this low-background environment. High statistics neutrino detection will also provide valuable data for fundamental topics in perturbative and non-perturbative QCD and in weak interactions. Experiments at the FPF will enable synergies between forward particle production at the LHC and astroparticle physics to be exploited. We report here on these physics topics, on infrastructure, detector, and simulation studies, and on future directions to realize the FPF's physics potential

Moisture absorption and thickness swelling behaviour of sugar palm fibre reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane

Composite materials were made from sugar palm fibre (SPF) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) polymer, by melt compounding method using Haake Polydrive R600 internal mixer and followed by hot-pressing moulding. SPF/TPU composites were prepared with different fibre loading: 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% (by weight) of SPF, with the optimum processing parameters: 190 °C, 11 min, and 40 rpm for temperature, time and speed, respectively. Ten replicates were cut from the composite sheet according to ASTM standards. The density, water absorption and thickness swelling of the composites was investigated with water immersion time. The density of hybrid composites increases with increasing of sugar palm fibre. It also was found that the water absorption and thickness swelling increases with fibre content and water immersion time before an equilibrium condition was reached. It was observed that water diffusion occurred in composites, depending on the fibre content. SPF with 50% of fibre content exhibit maximum water absorption and thickness swelling during the whole duration of immersion (168 h)